Posted on 04/14/2006 2:42:07 PM PDT by Eaglewatcher
It's distributing his own money back to him for the most part Willie Tee! It's certainly not "wealth redistribution" in any way,
The basic fact is he gets money he didn't have before, and didn't earn, in the form of a payment in a medium of exchange.If everyone is getting their own money, what's the point?
If this were true, it would be much simpler to just eliminate the freebate and make the FairTax rate lower.
Your comparison of the prebate to refund of over-withheld income taxes is totally ridiculous, the two have nothing in common.
Of course the prebate is designed as 100% welfare for all Americans, and it is also something designed to allow future politicians to manipulate, means-test and otherwise purchase votes. It is yet another mis-representation of the reality of what the FairTax would actually be like in practice.
We can choose to hoard our money and not exchange it for goods and services? What good is it then? If too many people decide not to "consume" because the tax is confiscatory, what will the government do to collect the needed revenue? Raise the rate?
You must ignore pigdog posts (like most of us do) in order to make such a statement.
Read Federalist #21.
Hamilton will explain it to you in detail...
After reading many thousands of poster pigdog's posts over the years I can only say that, to my mind, he has demonstrated a far greater grasp of reality than that demonstrated by yourself.
LOL...
Consumption taxes are not socialist, WT.
They are the least invasive of any kind of tax.
They have the least ability to constrain the free action of the sovereign citizenry.
The consumption tax is in fact the socialist's worst nightmare.
Which makes me question the wisdom and the motives of its critics...
In my recollection, Hamilton's position is that the revenue would go down as the rate became more confiscatory, and create a cap on the government.
Of course, the stupid FairTax assumes that the revenue will remain fixed and the tax rate automatically adjusted each year to make up for any differences.
I am all for reducing the size of govt and eliminating most of the un-Constitutional spending, I favor doing this first rather than exerting all this energy rearranging the tax code to still extort the same amount of money from us in a different way.
After reading many thousands of poster pigdog's posts over the years I can only say that, to my mind, he has demonstrated a far greater grasp of reality than that demonstrated by yourself.I think that's an indicator of your grasp of reality (or lack thereof).
It's all in the Kool-Aid. Have another glass.
It's wealth redistribution.
OK, air is free.
Oh, man, is your thinking backward.
Politically, you're never going to reach your claimed goal...not as long as the bite is hidden, as it is under the current regime.
First, address the form of taxation by instituting a simple, visible form of taxation (Hint: nothing approaches the NRST for visibility and simplicity), unite Americans under a system in which ALL are treated equally and in which all are motivated equally to reduce the one single rate; THEN you will be equipped politically to put spending back where it belongs constitutionally.
Anything else is nothing but support for the status quo.
You guys are bringing intellectual pop guns to liberty's economic tank battle.
Sorry but that does not currently appear to be a viable option.
“Personal property is too precarious and invisible an asset to tax in any way than by the imperceptible agency of taxes on consumption.” (Fed Paper #12 Sec 6)
"A people may want a free government, but if, from insolence, or carelessness, or cowardice, or want of public spirit, they are unequal to the exertions necessary for preserving it; if they will not fight for it when it is directly attacked; if they can be deluded by the artifices used to cheat them out of it; if by monetary discouragement or temporary panic, or a fit of enthusiasm for an individual they can be induced to lay their liberties at the feet of even a great man, or trust him with powers which enable him to subvert their institutions; in all of these cases they are more or less unfit for liberty; and though it may be for their good to have had it even for a short time, they are unlikely to long enjoy it."
John Stuart Mill Essay on Representative Government
In your alternate universe, letting people keep their own money is 'wealth redistribution'. Wow.
What do you call a tax refund?
You may think, to the extent you have the capacity, any damned thing you wish!
Right now every American has a two page document every year that consolidates all of his federal tax payments. If we are too stupid in your opinion to read the line that says Federal Taxes Owed, they how will we be able to keep a running total of all of our expenditures for the year. I couldn't tell you to +/- 100% what I pay in Georgia Sales Tax last year, but I know my state and Federal taxes to +/- 5%.
How can you call income tax hidden?
What sayeth ye about the fact that the FairTax adjusts the rate annually as necessary to maintain revenue neutrality, as opposed to the Hamiltonian vision of revenue being a variable?
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