Posted on 06/03/2013 11:02:56 PM PDT by neverdem
Sometimes when youre writing part of a column you keep getting close to the meaning of what you want to say but you dont 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: Thats what I meant to say. Thats 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 baddont get me wrong. But it was elites using the machinery of government to spy on elites. . . . Its something quite different when elites use the machinery of government against ordinary people. Its a whole different ball game.
It is.
Thats exactly what I meant.
In previous IRS scandals it was the powerful abusing the powerfula 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. Its the mighty versus normal people. Its 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 ...
Oh, how about this example? I wrote the book on it. I have been a speaker at Henry Lamb's Freedom 21 conference on the topic (and you should look at the list of other speakers).
If you think all that K-street lobbying is about tax policy, I've got bad news for you.
Nonsense. You need to spin it that way because you're losing.
In fact, Id hazard a guess that you actually profit FRom the current system and would be one of the displaced workers after FairTax becomes law of the land.
Seeing as you're so f*ing lazy you didn't read my FReeper page before guessing, I'll tell you what I do: I gave up a successful engineering career to do something about the environmental movement and the Agenda 21, full time. That was in 1997. Nobody has paid me a dime since. That project included the arduous labor of restoring our 14 acres to a level unprecedented in the science of native plant habitat restoration. As things are now, university professors are coming here to see it and learn.
Your esoteric strawman arguments against the FairTax demonstrate that you are clever and have an inventive mind. If you put it to constructive ends, perhaps you could survive in a FairTax economy!
Besides the engineering degree, I have a degree in economics. I invented the first free market environmental management business method (out of my own pocket) with which to undercut the regulatory racket. If somebody would back me, I could cut the cash flow from carbon trading to Fannie Mae as royalties on the Bartels patent, mine constitutes prior art. So as to getting on your fool's bandwagon, I'm busy cutting the legs out from under this racket.
The Fair Tax is a nice theory. Back in the 80s I supported it. Unfortunately, when the tax on sales rises over 10-15% it becomes a mess because of the enforcement problem. Unless we cut government until that 10-15% on sales cash flow becomes sufficient to run the system (and I mean all of it, State and Federal), the Fare Tax is a disastrous idea. So, contrary to your fantasy, I'm more of a flat tax guy with no deductions, which you would know I said early on this thread...
...had you read it.
Actually, I did read your home page, and did not learn much re: your tax policy beliefs, which is what this thread is about. I did learn that you have had an interesting and varied career.
This post is, unless I missed it, the first I have seen that you are a flat tax advocate.
I’d enjoy reading your explanation of how the flat income tax is superior to the FairTax.
No. The thread is not about my tax policy beliefs. Had you read my page and followed the links, you would have known that I am not some political shill living off existing policy, as you accused me. I've already provided my reasons for abandoning the Fare Tax. So call the Flat Tax the least destructive income tax I can conjure until we can get the government down to size. Taxation is not nearly the economic problem that spending and regulation are.
Well said....
And those fancy places aren't for us - they cheer when money's tight enough they can close down the White House and everything else to citizens. Elites don't want the great unwashed their city. What jerks. The their pay - almost all the top income zip codes are around Washington DC. These folks only want the best for themselves. And they get it.
It would probably be difficult to scam people you respected - so they've chosen to look down on us. It's a defense to keep from seeing who they've really become.
At every step in the process those that benefit from the status quo will work to destroy not just the change, but those that support the change. Do not discount the enemy. No plan survives wholly intact after first contact. They’ll be fighting for their financial lives and to the death. We’ll be fighting for an ‘improvement’ and just a maybe.
So far, every attempt to control and limit the government ends up with more bureaucracy and some new, sneaky way around the trip wires. I don’t see a simple solution, but I do believe that consolidation of agencies is a move in the right direction.
Eliminate and consolidate departments and delegate more activities to the states.
Never heard of it and it’s fascinating. It deserves its own thread for discussion.
This thread is about the IRS and the the corruption inherent in an income tax system. The Flat Income Tax is an income tax and the FIT will require an IRS to “administer” it. IRS will probably grow even more fangs with a FIT than it already has.
BTW, I have no interest in following the links on your home page to find out what your beliefs are re: taxation. You could have stated them up FRont and saved us this discussion.
I agree that “Taxation is not nearly the economic problem that spending and regulation are.”
Of the three, taxes happen to be the subject that I am most interested in.
I agree that government, at all levels, needs to be severely downsized.
It's right next to the part of the law that mandated that the income tax would never be more than 1% and only apply to millionaires. Oh wait...that was missing in that law, but that was the empty promise people like you were making 100 years ago. There is one law, though that has never changed and that's the law of human nature. The people running fedgov will pave an 8 lane superhighway straight to hell with what you think are your good intentions.
I stopped smoking years ago but when did I wouldn’t smoke the steaming pile of bullshit you’re peddling. That “fair” tax is a scam from top to bottom. Anything that starts off with a lie about the tax rate is a non starter for anyone not drinking the koolaid.
BTW, I have no interest in following the links on your home page to find out what your beliefs are re: taxation.
You asked for sources when I said that tax-exempt charities were using that status for racketeering purposes in post 49. I offered those sources here. You apparently didn't read it.
You could have stated them up FRont and saved us this discussion.
I did, and I told you so here. That means you are willing to ignore reality in order to pretend that you have an argument. That's fundamentally dishonest.
I agree that Taxation is not nearly the economic problem that spending and regulation are.
Because taxation will be sufficiently large to cause people to cheat. When they cheat, the IRS or their State equivalent (in your fantasy dream world) will enforce, and that includes audits every bit as intrusive as today. In fact (if you knew anything about a "friendly" visit from the State Board of Equalization), they already do it in States with sales taxes. Hence, your bald-faced assertion that a Fare Tax will do anything to reduce intrusiveness by the IRS is completely fantastic.
Of the three, taxes happen to be the subject that I am most interested in.
Dream on; your priorities are completely wacked. As far as I am concerned, you are therefore a danger to liberty. I'm done with you.
I was done with you a long time ago.
My response is that the federal income tax is the worst sort of scam, FRom top to bottom, and has been for one hundred years.
What is even worse, is that the income tax keeps getting more and more corrupt and criminal, and the FairTax is a way to eliminate that behavior.
The FairTax rate is 23%.
That's rich. You talk about corrupt and crooked and follow it up with the bait and switch snake oil on the rate. I know this scam, but since you're the official Henry Higgins on this, please go ahead and tell everyone what the total out the door price would be on a item that today costs $100 under your "fair" tax.
$130.00; the $30.00 represents 23% of the total price, including taxes.
Virtually EVERY critic of the FairTax has made the argument that you will make when you read this post. And, you will use the $30.00 to misinform low information voters about the FairTax.
Arguing that FairTax supporters are misrepresenting the rate is standard fare for naysayers: the FairTax TAX INCLUSIVE rate is 23% and the FairTax TAX EXCLUSIVE rate is 30%.
Note that the federal income tax rate is expressed as a tax inclusive rate, so for that reason (IOW, to be consistent), FairTax is expressed likewise.
Do the math: if you are in the 15% tax bracket, you would need to earn $117.65 to have $100.00 left after taxes; likewise the 25% bracket requires you to earn $133.33 to have $100.00 left after taxes.
The FIT rate structure CAN be expressed in TAX EXCLUSIVE terms, but that is just not done. I doubt you will find any official IRS publication which speaks of FIT rates in TAX EXCLUSIVE terms.
Good luck peddling your 76 trombones somewhere else but people here aren’t buying it. People who are paying attention want nothing to do with your welfare checks and big brother purchase tracking that will happen contrary to any amount of happy horse shit you try to disguise it in.
Even though I don't like Noonan.
5.56mm
It really puzzles me why any sentinent American would oppose the FairTax, particularly those who value their FReedom and privacy.
Many of the folks I know who do oppose the FairTax do so because they have a (perceived) vested interest in the present system.
Others are LIEberal/Socialist/Marxist/Fascist bastards who cannot comprehend being FRee to work, earn, save and invest FRee of government interference!
Nor can they allow any of their fellow Americans to do so.
Then there are those who don’t understand that this is a government of, by and for the people, and that if they raise enough Hell, government can change its ways. IOW, they are content to sit on the sidelines and let others do the heavy lifting of fundamental reform.
Which camp do you fall into?
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