Posted on 04/26/2010 7:11:23 AM PDT by IbJensen
CNSNews.com) – When President Obama asked former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.) and Democrat Erskine Bowles to chair his debt commission in February, he told them to consider any and all ways to reduce the federal deficit – including new taxes, apparently.
Bowles, a former chief of staff in the Clinton White House, told Fox News Sunday that “the president looked Senator Simpson and me in the eye and he said, ‘Everything is on the table.’ So we are going to look at every single way to right this fiscal ship,” Bowles said. That includes cutting “sacred cows” and raising revenue, he added.
“We have to have everything on the table,” including a value added tax, Bowles said.
“I think there are many good arguments that you can make for a value-added tax or consumption tax, as opposed to a tax on wages. But I think it's just one of the things that ought to be on the table that we ought to discuss. I'm not for taking anything off the table.”
Bowles refused to say if he personally thinks a VAT is a good idea. “I want to see the pros and cons discussed, and then I want to see us make some decisions and some hard recommendations.”
Simpson said before imposing a value-added tax, the nation needs to deal with the income tax. “You can’t have a VAT tax and then leave the present [income tax] structure,” he said.
Simpson said something has to be done: “We have the ability, and I hope the trust of each other, to adjust and put together a package. And if the American people and the Congress don't like it, then just let them sink, because Greece is sinking on debt and deficit; Spain is next; Portugal is next. How would you like to be the United States of America when China pulls the tin cup and says we don't want T-bills, we want money? Now, that's where we are. It's serious business.”
The commission is supposed to get its recommendations to President Obama by December 1, shortly after the midterm election.
According to Bowles, waiting until after the election is a good idea: “It gets the politics out of it and gives us a chance to build up some trust to get to some real hard recommendations,” he said.
The debt commission – formally named the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform – will examine ways “to meaningfully improve” the nation’s long-term fiscal outlook, the executive order says.
The panel also will “examine changes to address the growth of entitlement spending and the gap between the projected revenues and expenditures of the Federal government over the long term.”
Apparently the people in Washington have not heard or listened to the message of the Tea (Taxed Enough Already) parties. Perhaps they will get a louder message in November 2010.
The problem is that they’re going to spend so much time bending over backwards to ensure people under a certain income level don’t wind up paying VAT that it will consume all the additional revenue to fund the agency that protects them.
The VAT is a given by this commission.
But here is the important part.
They will consider it WITHOUT ELIMINATING THE NATIONAL INCOME TAX.
In other words it will be just another tax already burdening overtaxed US citizens already and the VAT TAX will hurt the poorest citizens in the country, the poor and the middle class, precisely the people who Obummer said he would not tax one iota. HAH! A memo to all voters who voted for Obummer: You voted for Obummer, you !@#$%^&*! morons and you actually fell for his bullshit. How is that change workin’ out for ya? That’s probably all you will left after Obummer gets through with you, you dumbshits.
THE SILENT KILLER: OBAMA’S VAT PROPOSAL
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
Published on DickMorris.com on April 23, 2010
When conservatives like Neal Boortz proposed the “Fair Tax” (a levy on consumption not on income), we should have known that the Obama left would seize on the proposal not as Boortz intended it to be, a replacement for the income tax, but as an addition to it! Now Obama has let it be known that the VAT is “on the table” as he casts about for taxes to lock in his gigantic levels of federal spending.
At stake, of course, is our free market system. When Obama took office, federal, state and local spending accounted for 30% of GDP. Now it is up to 35% and, when health care is fully implemented, it will rise to above 40%. But taxes are still below 30%. The difference is the deficit, now grown to 10% of our GDP.
If our government is to continue spending 40% of our GDP, we will morph into the European model of a socialist democracy. But if we can roll the spending back to 30%, while holding taxes level, we will retain our free market system.
In 2011, we will have three choices:
a) Raise taxes up to 40%
b) Cut spending down to 30%
c) Or half and half
Now Obama proposes the ultimate step to convert us into a European nation - the VAT.
The VAT (value added tax) is levied at each stage of a commercial transaction. So the raw material seller charges the manufacturer who then adds a new tax onto the price when he sells his finished product to a retailer who then adds on a new levy when he sells it to a customer.
And the customer doesn’t know it.
When you buy something for $10 and the clerk asks for “$10.65, please”, you know that you are paying a 6.5% sales tax. But when $4 of hidden VAT taxes causes the item to cost $14, you pay the $14 without knowing that it includes the extra tax.
A key reason Europeans stay leftist is that they don’t realize how much they are paying in taxes since it is hidden in the price of the products they buy.
And, in Europe, as Obama proposes in the U.S., the VAT does not replace the income tax, it just supplements it.
High VATs and high taxes on the top bracket of income exist unhappily side by side in Europe. VAT taxes average 20% on the continent while top income tax rates are all still in the 40-50 percent range.
The battle over how to pay down the deficit is looming in Washington. Some liberals boldly promise to raise taxes and proclaim their willingness to take the heat for the decision. But now Obama has offered them a more palatable alternative - raise taxes by increasing the VAT and hide it from the public by burying the tax into the purchase price of the product.
Left in the dust, of course, is Obama’s signature pledge not to raise taxes on the “middle class.” The VAT, which is levied every time anyone buys anything, falls on every citizen.
Of course, Obama could keep his pledge by the simple expedient of require everyone who makes more than $200,000 to be branded on their forehead with a big $ sign so that the clerk will know to charge him the VAT. But, perhaps that might be a bit too much even for him!
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All taxes will be raised by this socialist...Fed, SS, Medicare, and there will be all kinds of new stuff...like road tax, fart tax, sugar tax, salt tax, fat tax,
‘cutting “sacred cows”’= Military
Raise your hand if you didn’t see this coming.
Two things:
1. These guys better be careful what they wish for
2. If they pull this off, they may have to learn, yet again, how increasing taxes can actually reduce tax revenues.
In a way, I hope they pull this off. I’ve already gone Galt. The sooner this house of cards collapses of its own weight, the sooner we can get to the task of rebuilding. This endless limbo thing is annoying.
If the federal income tax was eliminated, I’d like a FLAT VAT. The problem with lots of different taxes is that they keep you from realizing that about 80% of every dollar you earn actually goes to paying one tax or another, including those (like B&O taxes and fees) rolled into your prices.
Makes sense, Get it over with then build anew.
Since the rats have used the Constitution and our flag for toilet paper in proving them irrelevant a Franco-type could appear on the horizon to make many of our nemeses disappear and run thing for a decade or so.
Perhaps the majority would begin to like it.
The income tax is not going to be eliminated, we all know that. The best we can hope for is a reduction in income tax to offset the VAT as much as possible. But I'd be surprised to even see that happen.
Don’t you think that the Dems will create a new VAT credit on the 1040 for their constituents? Only the productive class will feel the pince.
Feeling more and more like going Galt.
You set your sights too low. I do see the vat as adding that one last card on a house of cards.
Wait. Never mind. I actually believe the passing of health care reform was the last card. It is in the “quivering before the collapse” phase. There will be no more cards placed. It’s done.
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