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The Luckiest Generation
National Review / www.nationalreview.com ^ | OCTOBER 24, 2013 4:00 AM | By Kevin D. Williamson

Posted on 10/25/2013 7:52:17 PM PDT by thecodont

One of the great American assumptions — that while individuals and families may rise and fall, each generation will end up on average better off than the one that preceded it — has been the subject of much scrutiny in the past decade. Democrats and their affiliated would-be wealth redistributors have argued that the large income gains enjoyed by the highest-paid workers threaten the American dream of ever-upward generational mobility, while others have worried that the housing meltdown and the Great Recession, which inflicted serious damage on the net worths of many American families, now stand in the way of that dream. Deficit hawks, including yours truly, have long worried that the entitlement system, with its unsustainable wealth transfers from the relatively poor young to the relatively wealthy old, would eventually leave one generation — probably mine — on the hook, having paid a lifetime’s worth of payroll taxes to support a system of retirement benefits likely to fall apart before we’ve recouped what everybody keeps dishonestly insisting is an investment. It’s fashionable to hate the Baby Boomers, who are numerous and entitlement-loving, for the problem, but in fact they may be the first generation to feel the sting of the reversal.

(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Government
KEYWORDS: babyboomers; entitlements; genx; greatestgeneration

1 posted on 10/25/2013 7:52:17 PM PDT by thecodont
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To: thecodont

Bring back American jobs.

To America.

Stop buying so much imported cr*p.


2 posted on 10/25/2013 7:53:22 PM PDT by Cringing Negativism Network
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To: Cringing Negativism Network
FREEDOM, RESPONSIBILITY and EXCELLENCE for EVERYONE (the FREE PARTY)

Party goals:
Set the United States on a path of continued improvement in personal freedoms, personal prosperity and personal responsibility.

The centerpiece of freedom is an economy that allows individuals and corporations to provide needed and wanted service and goods, to freely generate profit and income and to freely compete in a legal and regulatory environment that minimizes harmful side effects while maximizing productivity product diversity and freedom.

Philosophy:
People are happier if they are productive and can control their own lives.

Core concepts:
Government exists to provide the structure and stability needed for a prosperous society.
Appropriate government functions include:

National defense (includes control of borders and immigration)
Provide uniform standards of weights and measures
Provide a uniform legal structure that neither favors nor penalizes any American entity over another
Provide such infrastructure as is beyond the scope of private industry
Provide for the rights to free association, property, liberty and activity
Provide for honest dealings
We recognize that all government functions involve an element of force and sometimes require what we call “dreadful necessities”, those actions and activities that we as individuals find repugnant but the realities of imperfect politics and an imperfect world sometime require.
They include such things as:
The necessity to wage war when the alternatives are worse
The death penalty for extraordinary crimes
Abortion
Taxation
Dreadful necessities are to fall on all residents equally or to be so arranged as to not force individuals with strong moral objections to support.
For example, abortion, people who see this as an absolute woman's right will never agree with people who see it as murder. Politically there is no solution to this dilemma if everyone is forced to either support or repudiate the same side. One possible solution is:
Allow taxpayers opposed to abortion to withhold their tax dollars from being spent in support of those entities performing them. Specifically, allow individual taxpayers to block the use of their own personal tax dollars as funding that would otherwise be used to “perform, support, provide facilities and supplies for, or promote abortion of healthy babies".

Or require a positive action to fund abortions, allow taxpayers who support abortion to be the ones who fund it using a tax form tic box modeled on the Presidential Election Campaign fund:

Abortion on Demand Fund
Check here if you or your spouse, if filing
jointly, want $3 to go the this fund.
Checking a box below will not change
your taxes or refund. [ ] You [ ] Spouse
Similar arrangements can be made on most “hot button” issues.
Taxation:
We recognize the dreadful necessity of taxation. As such, taxation needs to be as simple, painless and even as possible. Taxation must only be used to raise revenue to fund necessary governmental functions. The tax code needs to be free of all the artificial constructs intended as “social engineering”. It is no business of the government if you choose any particular industry or lifestyle. Accordingly we propose the following tax structure:
1. Eliminate ALL current IRS regulations.

2. Set the individual tax rate at 10% regardless of income.

a) Perquisites are taxed at 10% of cost.

b) Tax only the increase in value of any investment, and only when that investment is cashed out.
3. Withhold at the rate of 11%, to get a refund you have to file taxes, but there is no legal imperative to file.

4. Since owners and shareholders are already taxed on their individual incomes, eliminate ALL corporate tax.
a) Eliminate ALL depletion allowances and depreciation allowances.

b) American taxes are only collected on money earned in America.
5. Tax ALL money coming into the country at 0% (yes, ZERO%).

6. Tax ALL money leaving the country at 10%.
Note that this removes the government form the marriage and child rearing business. You want to get married? Your business, it is no business of the IRS, it doesn't affect your taxes. You want one child or a dozen? Have as many as you can raise, that's not the government’s business, that's yours.

Oh, and voting is tied to taxation. Only those who pay have a say. You must be a net tax payer to vote, if you are receiving more in federal benefits than you are paying in taxes, you sit out the federal elections.

Earned social security and retirement payments are explicitly exempt from those calculations as they are deferred pay and not a handout.

Charity:
Governments don't do charity, governments do force. Americans need to return to individual charity and caring. There was a time not all that long ago, when we freely donated to our churches and charities, when we helped our neighbors one-on-one. We still see that in any number of drives to raise money for a child's cancer treatment. We still see that in private fundraising for stray cats and polar bears. We still see that in disaster relief for third world countries. We can restore true charity, rather than heartless compulsory welfare.

Reciprocal International Relations:
Open and friendly to all who are open and friendly to us, restrictive and hostile where we face restrictions and hostility. The goal of our diplomacy is wealthy and happy friends, recognized wherever they are, and created wherever we can, and utterly destroyed enemies where we must. (sidebar: Like Von Clausewitz, we recognize that diplomacy and war are part of the same continuum. The Departments of State and Defense will become one department)

I might also add:

• Minimum wage: Eliminate for teenagers.
• Eliminate all Czars, forbid the Czar title forever.
• Unemployment. Stop tracking a negative! If you focus on UNemployment you get UNemployment. Count, track, report and focus on EMployment.
• Coinage and paper money: Remove all images of any actual human beings from all new coins and currency. Allegorical figures, natural wonders, symbolic and fantastic animals and technological achievements only.


3 posted on 10/25/2013 8:01:54 PM PDT by null and void (I'm betting on an Obama Trifecta: A Nobel Peace Prize, an Impeachment, AND a War Crimes Trial...)
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To: Cringing Negativism Network
A "one-note joke" is a character with so few dimensions it's difficult to see him (or her -- or, occasionally, them) from most angles. The one-note joke may have served a valid purpose when the author introduces the character(s), but if the ONJ shows up twice, you get a feeling of déjà vu, and by the third time you find yourself asking "is that all they do?" Get it?

Didn't think so. Still waiting for YOU to start YOUR domestic manufacturing company.

4 posted on 10/25/2013 8:12:04 PM PDT by C. Edmund Wright (Tokyo Rove is more than a name, it's a GREAT WEBSITE)
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To: thecodont

Imagine how much better off we’d all be if we hadn’t government messing with every aspect of our lives.


5 posted on 10/25/2013 8:12:10 PM PDT by rockinqsranch (Dems, Libs, Socialists, call 'em what you will. They ALL have fairies livin' in their trees.)
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To: null and void

pinged for later reading


6 posted on 10/25/2013 9:40:06 PM PDT by octex
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To: thecodont

I have thought that for several years now, that the ones just older than the baby boomers had it the best. Plenty of jobs since some lives had been lost in the wars and the big wave of working baby boomers floating their boats in a way. Able to get their so-called entitlements at an early age.

I have sensed an attitude of privilege among those just that bit older than the big wave of population. They do have more savings and secure retirements.


7 posted on 10/26/2013 9:02:35 AM PDT by angry elephant (Endangered species in Seattle)
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To: null and void
The Free Party? This is very cool. I tried to spread your words, but the whole article is too long. I suggest you try to post it in other websites so that others can see it.
8 posted on 10/26/2013 12:02:27 PM PDT by mulan (Molon Labe)
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To: mulan

Thank you, but, I don’t think it’s quite ready. I’d like more FReeper input first.


9 posted on 10/26/2013 4:52:01 PM PDT by null and void (I'm betting on an Obama Trifecta: A Nobel Peace Prize, an Impeachment, AND a War Crimes Trial...)
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