Posted on 05/12/2005 7:46:54 PM PDT by Your Nightmare
Members of the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform on May 11 expressed concerns over the FairTax national retail sales tax, a plan that has emerged as an alternative with a major grass-roots push.
Panel chair Connie Mack, vice chair John B. Breaux, and other members worried the plan would be difficult to enforce, would be regressive, and would require a high rate in order to take in enough money to fund the government.
Breaux raised concerns that the proposed 23 percent (tax-inclusive) rate would not be sufficient to raise the revenue necessary to fund the government. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that it would take as much as a 57 percent (tax-exclusive) rate to be revenue-neutral. Further, Breaux said he thought exemptions that would be carved out to make the sales tax progressive would also complicate it.
Mack, who raised concerns similar to his fellow panelists', said he was "intrigued" by the plan. "But if it's such a great idea, why haven't other political entities around the world pursued it?" he asked.
Americans for Fair Taxation Executive Director Tom Wright emphasized that the plan emerged after "thorough academic research" and "thorough polling" The strong grass-roots push has resulted in some of the group's 600,000 members appearing at each of the panel's hearings and has inspired a large comment-writing campaign to the panel in support of the plan.
Sales tax advocates were among the 20 witnesses who gathered before the panel for a full day of testimony on tax reform proposals. Although the group has held several other hearings in Washington and around the country, the May 11 meeting was its first hearing on specific reform plans since Bush appointed the panel in January. The panel has been charged with identifying tax reform proposals that are progressive, encourage charitable giving and home purchases, and are revenue-neutral. The proposals are due by July 31.
Among the tax replacement and reform plans presented to the panel were the value added tax, consumption-based tax, and the flat tax, as well as proposals that would use the current income tax as the foundation.
Witnesses generally claimed that theirs was the fairest, simplest, most flexible, most transparent revenue-neutral proposal that would improve economic growth and savings while meeting the president's criteria of encouraging charitable giving and home buying. Witnesses presenting consumption-based plans praised their overhaul as taking millions of low-income taxpayers off the rolls, being easy to transition to on a worldwide basis, and including safeguards to prevent new loopholes that would result in increased complexity down the road.
Tax reform panel members, who agree the current tax system needs to be fixed, grilled witnesses without revealing whether they will ultimately endorse a consumption- or income-based tax or a different mixture of the two.
You mean 25% more than 0%?
You're the one who purposely deleted that portion of a paper that said it, you should know.
You mean 25% more than 0%?Right. Nothing. You do realize that when you have 0% of something, you have nothing. So what is 25% more than nothing?
BIG (basic income guaranty) a world wide communist group proposal that has linked its future to the success of the so-called farttax. They see it as the vehicle to establish a BIG in the USA. Google it.It's pretty remarkable to see people who call themselves conservatives support such a plan, isn't it? The whole while they are complaining about people who don't pay taxes and the plan they are blindly promoting would make the situation much worse. It's almost funny.
You were caught.
... and I thought you were bloviating about how educated and cultured you were just a couple of posts ago. 'Fraid you need a better dictionary and I need to revisit the thought about you being educated and/or cultured.
The word "infer" was quite appropriate in the usage I offered.
Since you've never read the FairTax bill, you're hardly a decent judge of what it does or doen not contain.
Read the bill.
Actually, I already had and thought that might be what you meant but didn't want to INFER that.
That's what one of the founders, Block, of UC Davis staff (one of the more leftie UC hotbeds) is promoting but it is guaranteed income effort which has nothing to do with the FairTax. Here's a description so others won't need to bother:
"The basic income guarantee (BIG) is a government insured guarantee that no citizen's income will fall below some minimal level for any reason. All citizens would receive a BIG without means test or work requirement. BIG is an efficient and effective solution to poverty that preserves individual autonomy and work incentives while simplifying government social policy. Some researchers estimate that a small BIG, sufficient to cut the poverty rate in half could be financed without an increase in taxes by redirecting funds from spending programs and tax deductions aimed at maintaining incomes. "
And notice that they push for an increase in taxes (income taxes; the kind we now have). The FairTax does nothing of the sort nor does it "redirect funds from spending programs" and is revenue neutral to boot.
If you keep this up you'll be showing up as "dumb as a post". Please read the bill so you have a better knowledge of it.
He sounds like Bruce Bartlett or David Gale with that sort of stunting.
Can you imaging the existing tax sysem (or even the wunnerful, undefined Nightmare Tax) after 20 30 more years of political manipulation ... which is much easier under those tax systems than under the FairTax which has only a single visible-to-all rate?
You keep refereing to a "bill" that is the farttax. Until it is a law it is just a dream. BTW, no serious effort to establish a communist BIG in this nation would go about it by advocating a new tax, except of course the Farttaxers.
He sounds like Bruce Bartlett or David Gale with that sort of stunting.Who's David Gale?
You said I infered. I can't infer when I write to you, but if you wrote, I infered from what you seemed to imply, then your useage would be correct.
Tell it to Shakespeare, pal ---
"... this doth infer the zeal I had to see him --" Shakespeare
OR - take it up with Merriam Webster's dictionary:
"...another survey... infers that two-thirds of all present computer installations are not paying for themselves" -- H. R. Chellman.
You are clearly full of beans.
IF you indeed read the bill in 2000 it is quite apparent you inferred the wrong corpus of information from it. I suggest you read it again with more of your cultured education so you know more about it.
CHIEF negotiator's home did not "blow up" as you put it - one more thing you're wrong about. Your track record is building and building.
A guy who thinks a lot like you, Bruce.
I thought it caught on fire and it didn't give him much of a chance. Is that understanding correct?
Maybe I have it wrong and you can clear this up for all of us. I sort of inferred that a bill was a pre cursor to a law and you didn't get the latter without the former. What is it they call that first thing that results in a law???
Perhaps you missed that the BIG is an attempt to RAISE income taxes. And so far as I know it is not even a bill before Congress let alone a law.
Why don't you Google it and see ...
On 257 you say you are inferring. You can't if you are implying that a bill was a precursor. I inferred that all along but a bill is not a law and this bill will never report out as it was read in.
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