December 201, 2016
CORRECTION
Dec 20, 2015
More garbage from the GOPe.
Sounds like Forbes wants open borders, and cheap labor.
“And on immigration, I think his proposals are a non-starter, legally and morally. But what is out there is that people do want far more effective methods in dealing with Islamic terrorism.”
Steve will learn a bit about immigration laws once Trump takes office. We actually have VERY STRONG laws and with Trump running things, any judge that tries to nullify or modify those laws will simply be ignored.
So that's the little fraud behind magnum cum laude Rafael's plan to get a 10% flat tax. A VAT.
Seriously? I bet you haven't lived in a county with a VAT. We won't have Amero-style tax fraud any more. We will have Euro-fraud along with a Euro-bureaucracy that will look like some behemoth monster of the IRS and the European parliatment to collect it, and enforce it. Only it will be new, without a history of judicial review so the taxpayer will be completely unprotected while we spend the next 300 years sorting out any legal and judicial rights anyone has.
Anyone falling for this is STYUPID (British pronunciation).
What kind of an inside the Beltway troll is your man here. I know, some sort of I can write a supreme court brief weasel.
Ted promised to eliminate the IRS. What he did not tell us is he will create an even bigger bureaucracy in its place.
By the way the VAT rate in the UK is 20%. I would like to know what fraud-boy’s proposed VAT rate is. Did he write it down in his 10 pages, single spaced [!] “plan” for economic reform.
You have done everyone on this forum a great service. Few knew or understood Ted’s VAT plan, but Forbes has pointed it out. I don’t know he intended to load dynamite under Cruz’s bridge to the future, but he just did.
“The United States’ gross domestic product in 1999 was $9.7 trillion, so if Trump’s tax had raised $5.7 trillion, that would have been 59 percent of GDP, said Chris Edwards of the libertarian Cato Institute.
Federal tax hikes typically are no more than 1 percent of GDP, Edwards said.
“The Bush 1990 hike and Clinton 1993 hike were less than 1 percent of GDP over 5 years - whereas Trump’s tax would have been 59 percent one time in one year,” Edwards said.
Same guy [Chris Edwards, Cato Institute]:
NRO:
Ted Cruz’s and Rand Paul’s Strange Embrace of the “VAT”
The senators are right to want tax reform - but hiding the cost of government is not reform.
Senators Ted Cruz and Rand Paul are strong advocates of limited government. They are gifted spokesmen for free markets, and they are heroes for taking on the GOP establishment on issues such as overspending and civil liberties.
That is why their embrace of the value-added tax (VAT) in their presidential campaigns is so baffling. VATs are the revenue engine of big-government welfare states, not a proper funding source for the small federal government that both senators favor for America.
Cruz and Paul propose to rip up the current tax code and replace it with individual income taxes at low, flat rates - Cruz at 10 percent and Paul at 14.5 percent. Their plans would repeal the estate tax and corporate income taxes, while reducing the overall tax load. So far, so good.
But then we come to the VAT, which the candidates hide behind innocuous names - “business flat tax” for Cruz and “business transfer tax: for Paul. Actually, Paul’s title is accurate, because these taxes would “transfer” trillions of dollars into government coffers unseen by most citizens.
The tab for taxes collected from businesses is ultimately passed through to individuals in the form of lower wages, reduced dividends, or higher prices. So for transparency, the best thing would be to scrap business taxes altogether, and collect the full tax load from individuals at a flat rate. That way, people could accurately perceive the full cost of government.
It is true that the VATs proposed by Cruz and Paul have modest rates - 16 and 14.5 percent, respectively. The problem is not the rates, but the tax bases. VATs have huge bases. That’s because - unlike income taxes - they do not allow businesses to deduct employee compensation when calculating the taxable amount. So both labor income and capital income are taxed at the business level under VATs.
The result would be that tax revenues from businesses under the Cruz and Paul VATs would be enormous. While the plans would abolish the corporate income tax (CIT), the new VATs would have corporate tax bases at least four times larger than the CIT. So every rate increase in the VAT that future politicians might push would raise vastly more than the same rate increase on current business income taxes.
I share Cruz and Paul’s passion for major tax reform, but we should not hide the huge cost of the government from the people. Federal spending currently costs 21 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. So a simple flat tax on individuals at a 21 percent rate would more accurately convey the cost of government to the public.
By dropping individual tax rates to 10 and 14.5 percent with big exemptions, Cruz and Paul would be creating a mirage of cheap government. Those low “prices” for government would raise the demand for it - people would clamor for more subsidies from Washington. Like Cruz and Paul, I want cheap government, but the way to actually get it is to slash spending.
The VAT issue comes down to where we want to tax labor income, which is a huge base. Because Cruz and Paul shift much of the collection to businesses, more of the tax burden gets hidden from citizens and voters. For the Cruz plan, the Tax Foundation estimates that 71 percent of total taxes in coming years would come from the hidden business VAT, while just 22 percent would come from the individual income tax. By contrast, if the individual income tax is not reformed, it will raise about 50 percent of total federal revenues in coming years.
Furthermore, Cruz and Paul would abolish the 15 percent federal payroll tax. Currently, that levy is partly hidden from workers in the tax’s “employer half.” But the solution to that transparency problem is to change the administration of the tax so that the full amount is visible on workers’ paystubs, which is where the burden already falls in reality.
If the government is going to take our money, it should mug us on the street in broad daylight, rather than sneak into our homes at night and burglarize us unnoticed. The VAT would encourage more burglary. Cruz and Paul want smaller government, but down the road, other politicians looking to shore up entitlement programs will say, “They could be financed with just a small tax increase on businesses.” But each “small” increase in the VAT rate would transfer huge amounts of additional cash from the private economy to the government.
Cruz and Paul deserve credit for thinking big on tax reform, but they should remember the H. L. Mencken line, “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” If the common people want government spending, then the tax system ought to make them feel the full cost “good and hard.”
By Chris Edwards - editor of DownsizingGovernment.org at the Cato Institute.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/426469/ted-cruz-rand-paul-vat
“on immigration, I think his proposals are a non-starter, legally and morally. But what is out there is that people do want far more effective methods in dealing with Islamic terrorism.”
Do yo even read this crap before you post?
Cruz has adopted 99% of Trumps platform. Whatever damage this is supposed to do applies to Cruz too.
” and overhauling the Federal Reserve, including re-linking the U.S. dollar with the price of gold. “
Six Presidents have tried to do this. Six were assassinated.
Maybe he means “brouhaha”...?
When I’ve heard “hoo-ha” it didn’t mean that at all.
Steve Forbes = Establishment Fraud
Steve Forbes is all about rigged trade deals. This is why he does not care for Trump.
I disagree with Steve Forbes on immigration and so called “free trade.” I prefer fair trade. I prefer a flat rate or fair tax and am not in favor of any type of VAT tax at all. Unless there is a constitutional amendment, I believe a VAT tax will be on top of an income tax.
While I understand why he is doing it, (and he is correct that the administrative costs overwhelm the tax collected itself), I wish Trump’s tax plan mandated that everyone pay something. I’m one of those that believes that these are the membership dues we pay to live in America. But he’s correct that it makes no sense to spend $ 20.00 in gov’t processing to collect $ 6.00 in tax. Guess this is a heart over head issue for me.
I realize that some are accusing you of posting this as a Trump hit piece, but I don’t think that is accurate. Forbes is just airing his opinion and I didn’t take it as an attack article.
I’m a Trump fan. If elected, there are occasions when I am sure he is going to make me so mad that I’ll want to yank my hair out, and other times when I’ll erupt in applause. Same as all the rest of them, btw.
But the economy is going to crash, as sure as I am sitting here, because Obama has not fixed a damn thing — just operated so nothing blows up on his watch. We had better have someone with an economic & financial background at the wheel, preferably without the crony capitalists whispering in his ear the whole time.
I’m never gonna have another opportunity to vote for a citizen president (and I’m no spring chicken), who is largely paying his own way.
And I don’t intend to miss my chance. :)
Why are you always posting Establishment propaganda?
Good grief!