Posted on 06/22/2002 7:58:39 AM PDT by forest
The cost of the federal government is quickly getting way out of hand. More and more, Americans are starting to think that the government feels our money is their money and it is government that shall decide for us how much of it we may personally use.
Fact is, if our tax burden continues to increase, government may be pricing itself right out of business. Already, it has become easy to work and trade "off the books" in many areas around the country.
From time to time, Congress makes noises like it is lowering taxes. Overall, however, that is far from true. While we see that they might fiddle with the obvious tax burden once in a while, it is also true that hidden taxes continue galloping ever upward.
Two recent reports illustrate this nicely. One comes from Dr. Andrew Rettenmaier at the Private Enterprise Research Center at Texas A&M University and was released by the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA). That reports shows that American workers today only get to keep 56 cents out of each additional dollar they earn, on average -- and that will drop unless reforms are made to Social Security.(1)
By 2050, when today's teenagers begin to retire, that falls to but 47 cents. And, when it comes time for today's newborns to retire in 2070, taxpayers will keep only about 40 cents of each additional dollar earned.
He reports that the economic cost to society in lost productivity and output from the Social Security payroll tax alone is between 11 cents and 18 cents for every dollar of tax revenue collected. In 2001, this loss amounted to between $49 billion and $82 billion, or as much as $804 for every household in America.
Another recent report comes from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). This report concerns the hidden tax Americans pay as a result of our over-regulated society.
President Bush notes that regulations often are not well targeted, cost more than they should, and often have costs that outweigh benefits. The report indicates that, through better scientific analysis and more public involvement in rulemaking, President Bush is interested in applying some brakes to the regulatory state. Our primary interest then becomes where, when and how much.
As the OMB reports, health, safety and environmental regulations cost up to $229 billion annually. That equates to an average of a whopping $1,900 per taxpayer annually in hidden taxes.
That's not the whole of it, though. Professors Thomas Hopkins of the Rochester Institute of Technology and Mark Crain of George Mason University report in "Regulations can Strangle" that when economic regulations and paperwork costs are included, the regulatory costs are about $840 billion. Which means, as they report, the average American household pays an extra $8,164 in hidden taxes, fees, and price increases passed on to the consumer by businesses, just because of the vast regulatory bureaucracy.(2)
Yet another report, "Ten Thousand Commandments: An Annual Snapshot of the Federal Regulatory State" by Wayne Crews, director of technology studies at the Cato Institute, will be released shortly. This report is expected to itemize many of the worst offenders.
The very first sentence of out Constitution clearly indicates that Congress is responsible for all law. But, Congress delegates vast legislative power to federal agencies, despite the fact that the Constitution grants zero legislative powers to any regulatory bureaucracy. Which means, then, the Members of Congress can claim the regulatory morass was not their fault.
But, it is! The whole of the regulatory bureaucracy was started with Congressional legislation in the 1930s. Congress can abolish it anytime they wish. Therefore, they are directly responsible and must be held accountable.
After all, our Constitution set up a representative republic. Nowhere does the Constitution even hint at authorization for a bureaucratic leviathan -- complete with dozens of their own little communist-style politburos. Which means, that vast regulatory bureaucracy must go.
Meanwhile, we should all remember the sage words of George Mason University Professor of Economics Walter Williams, wherein he reported that the federal government was tasked with but eighteen primary powers. Williams writes that these eighteen duties mandated to the federal government by our Constitution would account for approximately one-third of the federal budget. The other two-thirds of the federal budget is, therefore, "extra- Constitutional" spending.
In other words, two-thirds of the hard earned money we are forced to send to Washington every year is spent by the federal government with no Constitutional authority.
1. http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st/st252/
2. http://www.s-a-f-e.org/newsletter.html
The average American household pays an extra $8,164 in hidden taxes, fees, and price increases passed on to the consumer by businesses, just because of the vast regulatory bureaucracy.
The very first sentence of out Constitution clearly indicates that Congress is responsible for all law. The whole of the regulatory bureaucracy was started with Congressional legislation in the 1930s. Congress can abolish it anytime they wish. Therefore, they are directly responsible and must be held accountable. After all, our Constitution set up a representative republic. Nowhere does the Constitution even hint at authorization for a bureaucratic leviathan -- complete with dozens of their own little communist-style politburos. Which means, that vast regulatory bureaucracy must go.
The federal government was tasked with but eighteen primary powers. The eighteen duties mandated to the federal government by our Constitution account for approximately one-third of the federal budget. The other two-thirds of the federal budget is, therefore, "extra- Constitutional" spending. In other words, two-thirds of the hard earned money we are forced to send to Washington every year is spent by the federal government with no Constitutional authority.
According to the Tax Foundation, in 2001 the tax burden on the average American was 23.6% of his or her income in federal taxes, plus 10.2% in state and local taxes, 33.8% total.
Unfortunately that is just the beginning, The burden of government in this nation is much more than the federal revenue collected each year.
Dr. James Payne of the University of California, Reason Magazine '94; found that in addition to direct taxes we also pay huge, hidden taxes including:
- Tax compliance costs: record keeping, reporting, filling out forms, and learning about tax regulations.
- Costs of tax enforcement: resources expended in responding to the tax authority. Each act of tax enforcement--each audit, each notice, each levy--entails a burden for the citizen subject to it.
- Tax disincentive costs: the loss of production because of the discouraging effect of taxes on investment and labor.
"When the overhead costs are added together, (24 percent compliance costs, 33 percent disincentive costs, and 8 percent other costs), they total 65 percent of tax revenue."
And even that figure doesn't include the cost of import duties, license fees and other government regulations. For a typical U.S. family, the real cost of taxes and regulations as a percent of gross income is at least:
Federal taxes 23.6%(taxfoundation)
State & local taxes 10.2%(taxfoundation)
Overhead costs 21.9%(James L. Payne)
Regulatory costs 13.0%(M.W. Hodges)
More than 68% of one's income is now consumed by government through tax collections, compliance costs & regulation.
I can't believe the amount of spending this man does. I can't believe how wrong I was. I can't believe that, despite the good move he made regarding "World Courts," etc., just how liberal this guy is.
I am tired of defending him. I am tired of making excuses for this man. I am just plain tired of it. But, what can a fellow do? Nothing! It is either choose socialism at a slow pace (Republican), or socialism at a fast pace (Democrat). I just hope that somebody knocks some sense into his head. I think though, that it will have to come down to us voters going to a more conseravative, third party, for one election, causing Bush to lose. Nothing would make the republicans wake up faster than losing, yet another, election to the democraps because their base split and voted for a more conservative party of freedom. Then, and only then, would you see the republicans quit pandering to the left and start proving through example that conservatism is better than socialism.
How am I so sure. Well, if Bush was a true, conservative Republican, he would slash spending, downsize government, and cut out the huge bureaucrasies of overlapping agencies, thus causing a huge relief on the taxpayer, in turn causing an economic boom never seen before. Then, he would use the bully pulpit and compare our economy to those of socialist, liberal nations and it would finally be the Republican's turn to educate the masses.
That's what the left did. They educated the masses with misinformation that, to this day, is still thought of as true. Hell, I still hear the same worn out cliches as gospel truth (i.e., "Democrats are for the working class;" and, "The rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer"). That is how Cuba fell to a nobody-lawyer-turned-revolutionary named Fidel Castro. He educated the masses with misinformation. But the difference here is that we can prove truth with action, where as the left has to cover their misinformation with more lies, thus tangling themselves in a web of deceit. When will the Republican's ever wake up? They will wake up when they lose elections due to their base fleeing to a more-conservative, third party.
Thank you for letting me vent.
Former Bush-can-do-no-wrong loyalist
Unfortunately, we are in a situtation where ... we succeed in pluging a few holes in the dike as three more are beginning.
We are losing in a major way to the philosophy of the politically correct, it's all about tolerance, sympathy for the criminals, (what did we do to deserve their actions), making excuses for the lack of self disclipine of smokers, over-eaters, druggies of all kinds, alocoholics, owners of SUV's, the epa taking land and barring farmers from farming, etc etc. etc. The outlandish settlements in law suits. Retrials for the 'found guilty', early release of dangerous offenders. We are crashing and burning at every level and we continue to blithely pursue this course. Does STUPID fit here? To be followed by downfall of our way of life and nation.
We are accepting ever increasing controls, taxes, limits, intrusions, the overarching unconstitutional infractions and irregularities ... all the while being distracted by the event of the day, war, wall street, infighting within the senate, Chandra Levy, kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart, Robert Blake, the current movie release, Enron, Drug Rite,etc. etc. How do I know this ... look around the list is endless.
There is BIG trouble in the United States and we are spiraling down. Does too little ... to late apply here?
Okay my rant is off too.
What does one call a government system where people are not entitled to their own property or earnings, where government is the largest employer, where government owns most of the lands, where people are subjected to thousands of laws at the whim of the ruling class, where a constitution exists but the reality of everyday life does not resemble it, where freedom is hunted down and minimized at every opportunity, where the unpredictable and even contradictory laws are unknowable by the common citizen, where emotional loyalties can be legislated, where animals have as much protection as residents, where the ruling body is subject to a different set of rules, where different group identities are treated differently within the law, and where there is every indication that this system will not change no matter how much a peaceful population might wish it? Whatever it is, it surely isn't a Constitutionally-limited representative republic anymore
I, too am tired of the tax-and-spend gang in Washington and that includes both parties. I voted for Dubya and in an equal election today, I'd vote for him again. But, as at the last election, I considered him the lessor of the negatives. I expected some liberal tendencies from him and that's what we got. I just didn't expect them to be as great as they seem to be.
I know that politics demands some give and take (and that's why I'm no politician), but this seems to be somewhat off balance. We need to reduce the size of government and to develop constitutional protection against government largess. I don't know how that can be done.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.