Principled wrote:Well, you haven't been very effective in that fight. Because during that time, a lot of complexity was added to the tax code.
Of course! We've been fighting tooth and nail against needless complexity and bad tax policy for 8-10 years now.
Principled wrote:Actually, the Dems are very effective at what they do. I don't like what they do, but they are effective. When they have the power, the move things in their direction as much as they can. When the power is split, they scale back, but they still get something of what they want. And when they are out of power, they obstruct.
Kinda sounds like the Dem policy on - everything.
By comparison, Republicans give Dems most of they want when they are out of power, they give Dems more of the Dem agenda than they get in return when power is shared, and they are stymied by the Dem obstruction when the Republicans are technically in power.
The big problem is that the Republicans always want more power and more political capital so they can pass bigger and bigger plans and solutions. They don't get the whole ball of wax, so they end up with nothing. And they tell the electorate, if you just elect more of us, we could do something.
On the other hand, Dems do what they can when they can and don't try to overstep what is possible. So they are more effective.
Fair tax supporters often say things like, "I'll support the bill as it's written now, but I won't support it if it is changed." In reality, that means, "Forget it, I won't support it at all." Because the reality is that it will be changed before it passes, or it will never pass.
Check my post 782 here, there's a few starter suggestions for some things that can be done to move in the right direction.
And even if doing away with withholding isn't politically feasible, maybe sending a monthly or quarterly statement of taxes paid to each taxpayer is feasible. That would somewhat raise awareness of the cost of taxes today, and it would estabilish a mechanism for contacting every taxpayer periodically with personalized information, a key element of the rebate for the so called "fair tax."
So it's now not whether we've been fighting, but how effective we've been in your eyes?
I was fighting the existence of the income tax, not fighting the complexity of the income tax. So I had no dog in the income tax complexity fight.
It is fighting the complexity and fighting the spending battles that are futile while we're under an income tax system that rewards complexity and spending. They system, IMO, is the problem.
The working to change things is in the form of the FairTax bill which I believe will make to the floor and through the vote with very few changes. It should be no secret that status quo lovers are trying to either defeat it or make it ineffective - witness what the SQL folk attempt on these threads.
I'm sure you think you can predict the outcome through Congress but I doubt it and I think there is at least as much reason to believe that the bill will be largely in its present form. It largely depends on grassroots support.
And "as written" does not mean "won't support it" but instead means that the bill is very good as is. As I mentioned the 1913 IT bill was not that way at all and already had the things you pre-suppose for the FairTax bill embedded in it - check the 1913 tax form to see this.
If anything the Dems should be for HR25 as it will help, for example, the union rank-and-file among others who are supposedly part of the lifeblood of the Dems. In fact, though, the bill is neither Rep or Dem leaning, but non-partisan.
Continuing with any form of IT - no matter how much tinkering is done - will accomplish nothing productive for the economy or the citizens since it perpetuates the evils of the IT. The FairTax bill will help both the economy and the citizens.