PING
I think NOW is the time to convince Bush and Congress to scrap the income tax alltogether and go with a sales tax, a fairtax instead.
http://www.fairtax.org
(I approve.)
OK...I'm really excited! Let's see what he is actually able to accomplish! This could be great!
Good. The Republicans have been complicating the tax code for the past 10 years. Perhaps this is part of his secret strategery the Bushbots have been promising for the past 4 years.
But more importantly the Federal Deficit needs to be reduced. Congress is going to send us into a depression that will dwarf the 1930s depression if something is not done.
We cannot keep going into more and more debt without it having major consequences.
If you would like to be added to this ping list let me know.
John Linder in the House & Saxby Chambliss Senate, offer a comprehensive bill to kill all income and payroll taxes outright, and provide a IRS free replacement in the form of a retail sales tax:
H.R.25, S.1493
A bill to promote freedom, fairness, and economic opportunity by repealing the income tax and other taxes, abolishing the Internal Revenue Service, and enacting a national retail sales tax to be administered primarily by the States.Refer for additional information: http://www.fairtax.org, http://www.salestax.org & http://www.geocities.com/cmcofer/ftax.html
Sounds like we got an interesting 4 years ahead
Excellent. As Ace of Spades points out, since neither Bush nor Cheney need to worry about reelection, they can pursue "all sorts of crazy-a$$ sh$t."
| President Bush's Thursday Press Conference http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/11/20041104-5.html
Q Mr. President, as you look at your second term domestic priorities, I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how you see the sequence of action on issues beyond Social Security -- tax reform, education. And if you could expand a little bit for us on the principles that you want to underpin your tax reform proposal -- do you want it to be revenue neutral? What kinds of things do you want to accomplish through that process? THE PRESIDENT: I appreciate that. I was anticipating this question; that, what is the first thing you're going to do? When it comes it legislation, it just doesn't work that way, particularly when you've laid out a comprehensive agenda. And part of that comprehensive agenda is tax simplification. The -- first of all, a principle would be revenue neutral. If I'm going to -- if there was a need to raise taxes, I'd say, let's have a tax bill that raises taxes, as opposed to let's simply the tax code and sneak a tax increase on the people. It's just not my style. I don't believe we need to raise taxes. I've said that to the American people. And so the simplification would be the goal. Now, secondly, that obviously, that it rewards risk and doesn't -- it doesn't have unnecessary penalties in it. But the main thing is that it would be viewed as fair, that it would be a fair system, that it wouldn't be complicated, that there's a -- kind of that loopholes wouldn't be there for special interests, that the code itself be viewed and deemed as a very fair way to encourage people to invest and save and achieve certain fiscal objectives in our country, as well. One of the interesting debates will be, of course, in the course of simplification, will there be incentives in the code: charitable giving, of course, and mortgage deductions are very important. As governor of Texas, when I -- some time I think I was asked about simplification, I always noted how important it was for certain incentives to be built into the tax code, and that will be an interesting part of the debate. |
As others have pointed out, reducing the simple expense of dealing with our embarrassing patchwork of tax laws would be an economic boon, and I think President Bush has chosen his priorities well.
If I could suggest anything to him myself, I would suggest that we also look at reducing some spending; my modest suggestion would start with defunding the Department of Education, and work on rolling back the "drug benefit."
Looking over the "Budget Game", I whacked out $300 billion of discretionary spending in a single go. (If you are not familiar with this, it's amusing, but definitely has a marked lefty slant -- it's from UCB and its home page has a column The Progressive Populist -- and can produce quite snarky messages when you offend its liberal sensibilities about not spending enough money.) Such are the powers of play, but we have a majority in both houses, close to a super-majority in the Senate, and we have the Presidency. If we cannot reduce some spending with this fantastic position, then I don't believe that we will ever be in a position to do so. The iron is hot; let us strike.
How about just getting rid of the Tax Code 9whichis what he might have meant)...we need to get rid of the intrusiveness of this beaurocracy, the IRS...
You have the mandate, Mr. President. Let's not go "reaching out" to the likes of Teddy Kennedy again, please.
bmp^