More shell games geezer. How about we solve the problem for good?
How about we solve the problem for good?
I see no better approach that has a snowball chance in h'll for enactment, that could actually achieve the real goal, smaller government.
The issue is one of visibility of the costs of government to the individual citizen and what that citizen is encouraged to call for as a result of being faced with the reality of the burdens large government places on each and every one of us. A tarrif simply is another way to hide the cost from the eyes of the electorate, just as corporate income & payroll taxes are.
For example we start with the federal taxburden as a percentage of gross consumption expenditure and discount the rate as we remove programs from the mix:.
23%........... Effective total federal tax rate with respect to gross expenditure for consumption:
15% ..... rate if Social Security and Medicare were eliminated
14% .......... rate if Nat'l Endowment for the Arts were eliminated
12%........ rate if Dept. of Education were eliminated
10%.......... rate if welfare & foreign aid were eliminated
etc.
So lets look at what the maximum it would take to fund those functions clearly authorized under Article I Section 8 of the Constitution, in current dollars:
http://w3.access.gpo.gov/usbudget/fy2001/guide02.html#Spending
- $334 Billion --- Defense & Military related expenditure
- $ 31 Billion ---- Administration of Justice
- $ 16 Billion ---- General Government
- $199 Billion ---- Interest on the Debt
=========================
$580 Billion ---- Total
Institute an across the board, Flat rate, single stage National Retail Sales Tax, which taxes all imports and domestic products with the same rate.
Replacing all current federal tax law with a retail sales tax would be 23% on new goods and services paid and receipted at the retail register. No hidden tax, no exceptions, exemptions everyone participates.
Such a tax acts in a natural manner to encourage the elimination of excess government functions through visibility of burden among all constituencies of the electorate.
The total federal government budget would move from $2,000 billions towards something less than $580 billions calculated.
The across the board federal tax rate on new goods and services would decline towards less than 6.7%.
As tax rate on sales decreases the economic burden on retail items, the sales volumes and growth in the economy would be tremendous allowing even further reductions in tax rates below that less than 6.7% theoretic level.
That is what I perceive as the ultimate achievements possible under a National Retail Sales Tax structured in the manner of the revenue bill H.R.25. Simple common sense applied to the principal of TANSTAFFEL,( no free lunch, everyone participates in paying their way in proportion to the benefit the extract from their consumption.) encourages the natural change in attitudes required of the electorate as regards the burden of government largess in their lives.
- It is fairer to tax people on what they extract from the economy, as roughly measured by their consumption, than to tax them on what they produce for the economy, as roughly measured by their income
Hmmmmmm....... It's do able, with time and effort, once the blinders are removed from the electorate.
More shell games geezer
The shell games occur when government is able to disguise or hide tax burdens from the view of the electorate as it does in the case of any business or corporate tax, which of necessity are always financed out of sales revenues or the company folds for lack of profitability.
That by the way includes tarrifs, as they are merely passed down in price of goods to the final retail purchaser, any other condition renders tarrif useless for what they are generally intended to accomplish, to equalize or give competative advantage to domestic industry through affecting the price paid by consumers for import products.