[Sgt_Schultze]

The $700 billion stimulus bill would have accomplished more if it had been structured as a withholding holiday as many conservatives suggested. Every family would have been given access to all of their own money to spend as their family situation required. Many would pay down credit debt, others might have saved it and some others might have splurged. But the money would have gone to exactly the right places where it would have been most effective.

Except the government would have benefitted no donating constituency. But the worst possible outcome of such a stimulus package would have been realized. There would be no way for the government to reinstitute withholding again. After Americans had access to all of their own money, who could convince them again to send at least 1/4 off the top to their drunken uncle to buy more whiskey?

[hopespringseternal]

Withholding should be constitutionally prohibited. In fact, taxation should be done on a “here’s your bill, send it in” basis. Anything that allows taxation to be hidden (such as government mandated inflation) concentrates power in the hands of those who fundamentally believe the exercise of that power is A Good Thing. That impulse is in direct contradiction to what the founders intended for this nation.