Posted on 04/21/2008 6:04:34 PM PDT by BGHater
Taxes were on the forefront of many Americans’ minds this week as they scrambled to meet the April 15th deadline to file their returns. Tax policy in this country hurts taxpayers twice – once when they pay taxes, and then when the government spends the money. Americans are sick and tired of the financial burden and the endless forms to fill out. To add insult to injury, after collecting this money the government does some very detrimental things to the economy.
The burden of complying with the income tax is tremendous. Since its inception in 1913, the tax code has gone from 400 pages to over 67,000. The Tax Foundation estimates that around $265 billion dollars and 6 billion hours are spent just on compliance. That expense amounts to about 22 cents of every dollar the IRS collects. Imagine the boon to the economy if we spent that time and money expanding our businesses and creating jobs!
Aside from the direct loss of money and productivity, the funds from the income tax enable the government to do some very destructive things, such as vastly over-regulating economic activity, making it difficult to earn money in the first place. The federal government funds over 50 agencies, departments and commissions that formulate rules and regulations. These bureaucracies operate with little to no oversight from the people or Congress and generate around 4,000 new rules every year and operate at a cost of about 40 billion dollars. There are some 75,000 pages of regulations in the Federal Register that Americans are expected to know and abide by. Complying with these governmental regulations costs American businesses more than one trillion dollars per year, according to a study by Mark Crain for the Small Business Administration. This complicated system drives production to other countries and shrinks our job market here at home.
Big government is destructive when it takes your money and when it spends it. There is no economic benefit to supporting a government sector as massive as ours. In fact, this country thrived for well over 100 years without an income tax. Today, if you took away the income tax, the government would still have revenue from other sources equal to total government spending in 1990, when government was still too big. $1.2 trillion should be more than enough to fund a government operating within its constitutional confines, and that is exactly what we need to get back to.
I have introduced legislation many times to abolish the IRS and the income tax. It is fundamentally un-American to require taxpayers to testify against themselves and be considered guilty until proven innocent. Abolishing the IRS altogether would trigger an avalanche of real growth in the economy.
With these financial hard times only just beginning, this would be the most efficient and logical way to get our economy growing again, and Americans would need not dread the 15th of April every year.
There is only $50 in the entire economy in my example. So the farmer can’t create the 18.80. In either case (IT vs. FT) the gov’t gets a % of the transactions.
The reason Paul's bills don't make it out of committee isn't because they lack details. It is for the same reason that an alchoholic doesn't admit his disease and seek counseling until physically forced to. It is because, like the junkie, the federal government is out of control. Look at Section 1 below. Do you seriously think that Congress would one day turn on a dime and suddenly not do anything that is not Constitutionally authorized? You'd have riots in the street burning to the heavens before the ink was even dry. Washington DC runs everything: the nation, and the world (for now). Bills like what Paul is proposing would make them stop, and when you break any delusion that fast, the snap back to reality is some kind of bitch.
That's why his bills don't make it out of committee, and that is why he became invisible running for president. Even Ann Coulter stated that she couldn't listen to Paul because she was too afraid he might be right. Ignore the problem, and it will go away, right? (Kinda of like how you ignored the questions I had about your recent theory).
Well, ignoring the problem has brought us... God, what hasn't it brought us? Rome is burning, my friend. Unless immolation is on your to-do list for the day, it's time to stop pretending that the sun is just really warm today.
As for the comment about why Paul's bills don't get out of committee, those weren't my words, they where Phil Gramm's, one of the biggest budgetary Conservatives out there. How long did it take you to brainstorm with your buddies to come up with the excuse that the bills 'should include those items in a single bill?' Lots of brainstorming on that I bet. The fact is, your excuse is BS. A bill cannot pass or even work if it does not have the means and method to work. Take some time, and go read a lot of bills that pass committee and congress and compare those with Paul's bills. All Paul offers is theory, zero method for making his theory happen. His theories may be correct in many cases, but without the detail to make them go through, they are completely empty rhetoric. William F. Buckley said it perfectly of Paul, he was all roar, no teeth. Running a country isn't about spouting a bunch of theories, it is ability to put those theories into practice through specific, detailed plans of actions and the ability to put those plans of actions into real world practice.
To put it into Paul's world, it is like claiming to know everything about delivering babies by understanding how the birth method happens from a book. That doesn't mean you will be able to be an OBGYN and actually deliver a baby in the real world. I would trust Paul to deliver a baby because he has real world practice and application of that skill. On the converse, he has no real world application of the skill of running a government or making the changes he claims to stand for- he has completely failed at every attempt. He, and his followers need to quit blaming everyone else because of his lack of ability to get any legislation through.
As the old saying goes, if your book doesn't get the message out, don't blame the readers, blame the author.
And yet we have neither. Could it be that something else is at work?
I think the only thing at work is that nothing happens overnight in an organization this large.
45 percent of US healthcare spending is publicly funded today. We didn’t arrive here by people not voting themselves benefits.
The government already had 22% of the $40 the Mechanic had paid the farmer. Which left only 31.20 in the Farmer's hands.
Total money in the economy is now $41.20.
My point is this:
If that initial $50 is spent once, there is only $39.00 left. Spend the remaining money ($39.00) in your $50 (initial) economy again, and there is $30.42 left (the government has the rest).
One more transaction, and of the initial $50.00, only $23.73 remains in private hands.
The government has over half of the money supply from your $50.00 economy.
In one year, at a mere three taxable transactions a year, the government would take in 52.5% of the money which changed hands (again, in taxable transactions).
If that money changed hands ten times in taxable transactions, the government would have 91.7% of the money.
Do the math yourself.
Multiply 100 by .22 and subtract the product from 100. Then do the same with the number you have left over.
Do that ten times, and you will see what I am saying.
Someone will have to put more in.
If the Government has 91.7% of the money after ten transactions, or even a mere 52.5% after three, the people are not going to have much unless the government spends it, and that generally will not go to the average little guy unless he/she is on welfare.
Needless to say, this scheme would do two things.
Drastically reduce the money supply, to the point where barter becomes commonplace and deflation sets in...
and make government the controlling monied interest in the economy.
But you want so bad for others to pay attention to your absurd "theory" that voting for Ron Paul somehow equates to looking to the government for answers that you posted it, invited me personally into the discussion, BTTTed it, sent it to a newspaper, over and over again asking people to ... pay attention. And yet when the time to return the favor comes, well, you just don't have time.
But it's OK, because as long as you're not challenging my responses I have another theory, one for why you didn't answer. You don't have one. If I'm incorrect in that assumption, kindly feel free to disprove my "half clear ramble" (projection?) wrong.
Or, just ignore the problem. Surely, that'll make it go away.
I saw no reason not to. It's perfectly consistent with all of what I have learned of her.
those weren't my words, they where Phil Gramm's
*laughs* Right, it must be true, a politician said so, and they wouldn't lie. What was that you were saying about not looking to the government for answers? Here's a fun game for you to play: ask Phil Gramm about the constitutionality of, say, the War on Drugs or the Department of Education, and see what his answer is.
Nobody in Washington wants to admit that the gig is up. That's why the GOP suddenly ran much harder against him this time than most of his previous runs (unless you have another theory). He was exposing the delusion of the modern state for what it is, and as pointed out, bursting someone's delusions is a fine way to earn the wrath of the owner of said delusions.
For chrissake, there shouldn't have to be included a "means" for the government to follow its own Constitution. That's what the damn thing is for! That a law saying that the people who administer the law have to follow the law even exists should speak to the end of the state.
brainstorm with your buddies
Ah, nothing spells desperation like random slander. I got out of politics because I saw what "brainstorming with your buddies" combined with politics can do to a cause. But feel free to start inventing other things about me to distract from how little response you have. "Tinfoil hat" and "smoking a good one" are some oldie-but-goodies.
A bill cannot pass...
...if those whose job is to pass it or not don't want it to. That's the only bottom line in that equation. To quote another poster, calling Paul "unsuccessful" in this regard is like calling the virgin in a whorehouse "unsuccessful". If all of Congress were Democratic but one man, would he be "unsuccessful" for proposing nothing but conservative policies that don't make it through? Or would he be "successful" by selling out his principles?
Paul is a 10 (scratch that, 11) term Congressman who has created an entire movement of people of all walks of life and political persuasions by doing nothing more than speaking the truth? Unsuccessful? Only if you measure it by the yardstick of collusion with the corrupt state. In the real world, the one that is about to ignore your convenient excuses, the one in which his name is still everywhere, he is the most successful politician alive today.
But hey, he only got 16% in Pennsylvania, so he must just be a failure. Ignore his message. I'm sure it'll go away.
BTW, for anyone watching, the "half clear rambles like that one" he is talking about is this, in which I ask him (IMO) specific, clear questions about the implications of his theory. I don't see anything "half clear" about questions like "are you going to join me in not voting this November?" and "If Paul isn’t your “non-government-solution” candidate, who is?", but hey, it could just be me. I accept any translation services necessary to explain these questions more clearly to mnehrling, as he seems to be having a bit of difficulty with them.
So yes, to answer your question, I do advocate voting out the bums. What I really advocate, though, is knowing what the bums are doing and how it conflicts with what you want them to do. Broken campaign promises are the not problem, it's the one they keep! The Cape Cod Orca, Chucky Cheese Schumer and the like all promise to block drilling, nuclear, coal. They don't hide it and their voting records aren't hidden. Yet, they get reelected by the people who are unhappy with the results of what they're doing.
I have a lot of contempt for the criminal class, but the voting class deserves its share and maybe more.
Taxes are exponential just as is the velocity of the money.
And yet, the health care system we have now is largely due to the lobbying efforts of the AMA.
No one pays income tax on $50. They don’t even have to declare it. They don’t have to file. Under the fair tax, the government would tax the sale of a gumball.
So?
Who's gonna keep track of all them gumballs?
You need help with your resume'?
As I posted earlier, the retail/service economy 'pot' shrinks fast.
One transaction, and the Government has 22%.
That leaves 78% of the original money left in circulation in the retail/service sector.
A second transaction, and the government now has 22% of what is left (the 78% of what we started with after the first transaction occurred), roughly 39% of the money which was in circulation, leaving just under 61% left in the economy.
The third time around, the government takes 22% of what is left, leaving just under 47.5% of the money in the original retail/service economy in private hands.
The Government now has over half of the money in the original retail/service economy in Government hands in just three 'flips' of retail transactions.
Someone mentioned "the velocity of money", but the faster it goes, the faster it goes--into the Government coffers.
In ten retail/service transactions, the government has 91.7% of the money that the retail/service economy started with, as taxes.
Sure, there are lots of transactions which would not be taxed.
But the very things I would exempt are things which, for the most part you cannot buy used. Food, medical care, energy, and last, (and this you can buy used) a primary residence.
However, under the fair tax, we could all go shopping at second hand stores and used car lots--for a while, anyway--because only a tenth of that retail/service economy would be around after a year or so.
How many manufacturers can afford to sit idle and wait for the old stuff to wear out? (Hint: I have been driving the same vehicle for 21 years, so it can be a very long wait.)
While wealth redistribution schemes may make the process slower, prebates are only going to cover a fraction of what the government takes in because they are intended to offset the taxes at the poverty level.
I guess it is a question of what you want to have for a country.
Do you want the government to be the primary purchaser of new goods, distributor of 'money', or are you a Capitalist who thinks that money and those resources are better in private hands?
That is exactly right. In the Wikipedia example $50 fostered $100 worth of transactions. In either tax scheme, the faster the money turns over the more the gov't takes.
I'm not arguing with your idea, I'm just saying you have the same effect either way.
The first $40 gets taxed $8.80, and at that point the TOTAL left in the private sector in that $50 economy was $41.20, not enough to buy the $50 tractor repair.
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