Posted on 06/03/2013 11:02:56 PM PDT by neverdem
Sometimes when you’re writing part of a column you keep getting close to the meaning of what you want to say but you don’t quite get there, the full formulation of the idea eludes you. Then two days later, relaxing in conversation with friends, the thought comes to you whole, and you think: That’s what I meant to say. That’s what I was trying to get.
This week I had one of those moments. I kept trying, the paragraph kept not quite working, the deadline came.
I got an email last night that had the effect of a clarifying conversation. It was from a smart friend who works in government. He understood the point I was trying to make about how the current IRS scandal is different from previous ones and more threatening to the American...
--snip--
But my friend got to the essence. He wrote, “The left likes to say, ‘Watergate was worse!’ Watergate was bad—don’t get me wrong. But it was elites using the machinery of government to spy on elites. . . . It’s something quite different when elites use the machinery of government against ordinary people. It’s a whole different ball game.”
It is.
That’s exactly what I meant.
In previous IRS scandals it was the powerful abusing the powerful—a White House moving against prominent financial or journalistic figures who, because of their own particular status or the machineries at their disposal, could pretty much take care of themselves. A scandal erupts, there are headlines, and then people go on their way. The dreadful thing about this scandal, what makes it ominous, is that this is the elites versus regular citizens. It’s the mighty versus normal people. It’s the all-powerful directors of the administrative state training their eyes and moving on uppity and relatively undefended Americans...
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.wsj.com ...
Thanks!
Somehow, someway, we simply must abolish the IRS!
I don’t disagree — it is just that the “underground economy — black market” argument is FRequently used by those who are opposed to the FairTax, sop the issue must be addressed.
Why, yes, so it is!
Thank you for your support.
They’re definitely crimes. Furthermore, while Nixon fantasized about using the IRS to attack some of his “enemies,” I don’t believe he ever actually went so far as to attempt to get the IRS to go along with this. What we have with Obama is not only a government targeting ordinary citizens who are just expressing their opinions or supporting a candidate, but massive corruption of every agency, making the agencies collude in his crimes.
Bill Clinton was also corrupt, but even with Clinton, his corruption was not on this scale and most of it was dedicated to seeing that Bill got what he wanted: usually either sex or money. Corruption and manipulation of the electoral process is endemic in the Dem party, but Clinton doesn’t seem to have made it much worse.
But Obama has brought every agency and institution of the US government into his socialist coup, using them to ruthlessly suppress and destroy all opponents and even murmuring voices among the citizenry with his goal of creating a uni-party system and an executive branch that controls and has absorbed the powers of the other branches.
So this is not only crime, it’s crime in the pursuit of a treasonous goal, that of fundamentally restructuring the US into a socialist dictatorship.
It’s time to do both.
Cut off the head. Cut off the arms. Then put all of the pieces in little boxes far away from each other.
Well duh, Noonan. How did you and your friends miss this for so long? Try reading FR or talking to some real conservatives instead of living in your own little echo chamber of elites.
It is time we ditch all of Title 26, the Internal Revenue Code and all its additional rulings in favor of FairTax (H.R. 25/S. 122--yes, it's a real bill in front of Congress). Under FairTax, we get the following advantages:
1. We can get rid of most of the 30,000-plus tax lobbyists--now HALF the lobbyists in Washington, DC--along with the corruption that goes along with it.
2. The tax code will only be just a few hundred pages, so anyone who can read a young adult novel can figure out the code.
3. Its very simplicity means extremely low compliance costs, around 5% of the current circa US$430 BILLION year cost of tax compliance. Imagine freeing up circa US$408 BILLION per year for more productive activities.
4. Millions of jobs, thousands of factories, and hundreds of corporate headquarters return to the USA, because it is tax-advantageous to do so. This means WAY lower unemployment rate and a new residential and commercial real estate boom, not to mention construction jobs as homes, factories and office complexes are refurbished and/or new ones built.
5. With no more incentive to offshore liquid assets for tax avoidance reasons, it means banks on American soil will be fully funded (with most of the estimated US$15 TRILLION in American-owned liquid sitting in offshore financial centers and foreign banks returning to the USA), providing huge stability to these banks and the banks will now have money to lend out for home loans, business loans and business lines of credit.
6. We no longer fear having one of the most unloved of Federal agencies require intimate details of our personal and business finances and the abuse of that agency for political reasons.
7. With no more taxation on savings, capital gains and stock dividend payments, American residents can now create their own private "nest eggs" for retirement and/or older age medical bills. This will TREMENDOUSLY reduce the financial pressure on both Social Security and Medicare.
8. The USA becomes the world's largest flag of convenience for commercial shipping. That could mean shipping ports along the Pacific coast, Atlantic coast, and Gulf of Mexico coast will boom as ships will be built and repaired there again on a large scale.
9. It would hugely attract foreign investment. Companies like Samsung, Foxconn, Siemens, and even Airbus would rush to the USA to establish US-based manufacturing and assembly plants.
So what are we waiting for?
Obama, the Knew and Approved president.
Thank you. Finally, someone who understands Federalism.
I agree fully and would add this. Let the states decide when to withhold the money from the feds with a 60 vote majority and repeal the 17th amendment.
She still missed the mark. The IRS treachery is about userption of power to increase the power to maintain the tyranny.
The IRS treachery is about destruction of the Republic. By stealing the election, there is no more Republic. It has been stole. The crime is against the Republic. There is no scandal, there is horrendous crime.
The punishment must be death. No less apunishment can be meted out for such tremendous crime against the Republic.
The unanswered question is “ who will lead the Coup”
Peggy, your paragraphs haven’t worked since about 1989...
Who the hell do you think will enforce collection of a sales tax on every barter transaction?
A ‘Simple Flat Tax’ will be dogged by requests for deductions and exemptions.
So will a sales tax. They already do it in California.
This is what the "fair" tax people can't get their hands around. The IRS isn't gping anywhere under any tax plan. And if you think an audit is intrusive and scary now, just wait until you have to prove that you paid tax on everything in your house. And cash...forget about it. They will outlaw it within a year or two of this tax. Cash will be demonized as the tool of tax cheats, drug dealers and...wait for it...terrorists. They will need to track every penny you spend and what you spend it on. This is the worst possible idea out there.
At a far lower rate.
The existing “black market” is sizable — I have seen estimates ranging up to one trillion dollars, and ALL of that money is not taxed.
True. Sounds like we need a simpler tax code so that the IRS can focus upon enforcement.
Do some research on the subject “FairTax and the underground economy”...
I've been reading about it for twenty years. It is theoretically appealing (I once advocated it), but once I understood the nature of the collection system, no. I don't want the government tracking my ammo purchases. You can pretend they won't, but they will. I don't want the government forbidding me from buying ammo if they believe or rule that I somehow cheated on the tax by some barter transaction. What I buy or sell is none of their business.
You have no idea where the enforcement of an NRST will go.
Due to the fact that under the FairTax, all consumers are treated equally (same tax rate on purchases) one can make a credible argument that the underground economy will shrink under the FairTax.
Your first argument above refutes the last. Try at least to be consistent.
The most sure-fire way to blow this is to try to use it as a political vehicle to change the tax system.
I had never contemplated the idea that this would lead to a ban on cash, but you are right. All transactions would be electronic and therefore totally subject to manipulation. Every good and value added would have to be tracked through the entire supply chain to make certain they weren't bartered out. Verifiable identity of transactors would be a must, with "mark of the beast" implications.
the fair tax will also take the money away from buying votes and turn charitable giving into a volunteer donation... recipients showing gratitude once again, instead of entitlement mentality.
teeman
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