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Everyone Should Pay Income Taxes
The Wall Street Journal ^ | 04-12-09 | Ari Fleischer

Posted on 04/12/2009 9:22:47 PM PDT by GOP_Lady

It's bad for our democracy to exempt half the country.

If you thought Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme was bad, wait until you hear about the inverted pyramid scheme the federal government is working on. While Mr. Madoff preyed on people who trusted him with their money, the federal government has everyone's money, and the implications of its actions are worse.

Picture an upside-down pyramid with its narrow tip at the bottom and its base on top. The only way the pyramid can stand is by spinning fast enough or by having a wide enough tip so it won't fall down. The federal version of this spinning top is the tax code; the government collects its money almost entirely from the people at the narrow tip and then gives it to the people at the wider side. So long as the pyramid spins, the system can work. If it slows down enough, it falls.

It's also what's called redistribution of income, and it is getting out of hand.

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: arifleischer; incometax; incometaxes; porky; taxes
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To: Zevonismymuse

Excellent! :-)


81 posted on 04/13/2009 11:15:11 AM PDT by GOP_Lady
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To: Taxman

I see you beat me to The Fair Tax ping after I pinged everyone. Good Job and thanks!


82 posted on 04/13/2009 11:15:25 AM PDT by Man50D (Fair Tax, you earn it, you keep it!)
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To: Leisler; RayChuang88
We will have the same taxes and the fair tax.

We already have a sales tax. Corporations, like individuals, have taxes levied on income. An income tax becomes a cost to businesses who in turn pass that cost onto the consumer by including the cost at each stage of production in the price of everything we purchase. Slightly less than 23% of every dollar is tax. It is essentially a sales tax. The Fair Tax will remove these embedded taxes by eliminating corporate income taxes and imposing a tax of 23% only once at the point of sale.
83 posted on 04/13/2009 11:21:17 AM PDT by Man50D (Fair Tax, you earn it, you keep it!)
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To: Man50D

Only in dream world of theory. Lovely. Maidens naked in the river on a spring day...

Anyways, back to bare knuckle politics..

We will have all the old taxes, and the flat tax.


84 posted on 04/13/2009 11:38:12 AM PDT by Leisler ("It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged."~G.K. Chesterton)
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To: Leisler
We will have all the old taxes, and the flat tax.

The Fair Tax will be a flat tax but on consumption instead of income. We are living in a nightmare now. The income tax began as a flat tax on income when enacted in 1913. The first tax ranged from merely 1% on the first $20,000 of taxable income and was only 7% on incomes above $500,000. So few people earned $20,000 in 1913 it was essentially a flat tax on income. Another flat tax will morph back into the nightmare we are experiencing only faster thanks to the thousands of lobbyists that didn't exist when the income tax was imposed in 1913.
85 posted on 04/13/2009 11:45:23 AM PDT by Man50D (Fair Tax, you earn it, you keep it!)
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To: GOP_Lady

Ari,

Hope you will be supporting the events desribed at http://pushbackuntil.com. Because that is the only way this will ever happen. Congress is typically very low on guts, courage, discipline, or real fairness. We, the people, are fed up with their ways and are intent on changing them.

“Be in D.C. to Push Back Until!”


86 posted on 04/13/2009 12:23:50 PM PDT by DennisR (Look around - God gives countless, indisputable clues that He does, indeed, exist.)
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To: Man50D

I know how it works. Beautiful.

Dream on.


87 posted on 04/13/2009 1:03:50 PM PDT by Leisler ("It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged."~G.K. Chesterton)
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To: Man50D

I think a lot of people’s concern on here, including mine, is that the Act may not be written such that it abolishes the 16th Amendment the very same time that the Fair Tax would go into effect.

I haven’t read the bill in its entirety, but if something to that effect is written into the bill, then I would imagine it will alleviate the worries of many.


88 posted on 04/13/2009 1:43:28 PM PDT by wastedyears (April 21st, 2009 - International Iron Maiden Day)
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To: GOP_Lady
Ari Fleischer can drop dead,the income tax is Unconstitutional and he knows it

everybody should pay 10% flat tax in peacetime and 16% during time of a declared war

89 posted on 04/13/2009 1:46:29 PM PDT by Charlespg
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To: Charlespg

I support the flat tax.


90 posted on 04/13/2009 2:19:00 PM PDT by GOP_Lady
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To: GOP_Lady

I was not attacking you,just the person who wrote the article


91 posted on 04/13/2009 2:26:34 PM PDT by Charlespg
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To: Charlespg

Oh, I know that. :-)

I just wanted to let you know that I liked your idea.


92 posted on 04/13/2009 2:31:12 PM PDT by GOP_Lady
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To: Desron13

here is Gary Coopers speech to the jury from the movie “the Fountainhead” by Rand

“Thousands of years ago, the first man discovered how to make fire. He was probably burned at the stake he had taught his brothers to light, but he left them a gift they had not conceived, and he lifted darkness off the earth.

Throughout the centuries, there were men who took first steps down new roads, armed with nothing but their own vision. The great creators — the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors — stood alone against the men of their time. Every new thought was opposed; every new invention was denounced. But the men of unborrowed vision went ahead. They fought, they suffered, and they paid. But they won.

No creator was prompted by a desire to please his brothers. His brothers hated the gift he offered.

His truth was his only motive.

His work was his only goal.

His work — not those who used it.

His creation — not the benefits others derived from it — the creation which gave form to his truth.

He held his truth above all things and against all men. He went ahead whether others agreed with him or not, with his integrity as his only banner. He served nothing and no one. He lived for himself. And only by living for himself was he able to achieve the things which are the glory of mankind. Such is the nature of achievement. Man cannot survive except through his mind. He comes on earth unarmed. His brain is his only weapon. But the mind is an attribute of the individual. There is no such thing as a collective brain. The man who thinks must think and act on his own. The reasoning mind cannot work under any form of compulsion. It cannot be subordinated to the needs, opinions, or wishes of others. It is not an object of sacrifice.

The creator stands on his own judgment; the parasite follows the opinions of others.

The creator thinks; the parasite copies.

The creator produces; the parasite loots.

The creator’s concern is the conquest of nature; the parasite’s concern is the conquest of men.

The creator requires independence. He neither serves nor rules. He deals with men by free exchange and voluntary choice.

The parasite seeks power. He wants to bind all men together in common action and common slavery. He claims that man is only a tool for the use of others — that he must think as they think, act as they act, and live in selfless, joyless servitude to any need but his own.

Look at history: Everything we have, every great achievement has come from the independent work of some independent mind. Every horror and destruction came from attempts to force men into a herd of brainless, soulless robots — without personal rights, without person ambition, without will, hope, or dignity.

It is an ancient conflict. It has another name: “The individual against the collective.”

Our country, the noblest country in the history of men, was based on the principle of individualism, the principle of man’s “inalienable rights.” It was a country where a man was free to seek his own happiness, to gain and produce, not to give up and renounce; to prosper, not to starve; to achieve, not to plunder; to hold as his highest possession a sense of his personal value, and as his highest virtue his self-respect.

Look at the results. That is what the collectivists are now asking you to destroy, as much of the earth has been destroyed.

I am an architect. I know what is to come by the principle on which it is built. We are approaching a world in which I cannot permit myself to live. My ideas are my property. They were taken from me by force, by breach of contract. No appeal was left to me.

It was believed that my work belonged to others, to do with as they pleased. They had a claim upon me without my consent — that it was my duty to serve them without choice or reward.

Now you know why a dynamited Courtland. I designed Courtland. I made it possible. I destroyed it. I agreed to design it for the purpose of it seeing built as I wished. That was the price I set for my work. I was not paid. My building was disfigured at the whim of others who took all the benefits of my work and gave me nothing in return.

I came here to say that I do not recognize anyone’s right to one minute of my life, nor to any part of my energy, nor to any achievement of mine — no matter who makes the claim!

It had to be said: The world is perishing from an orgy of self-sacrificing. I came here to be heard in the name of every man of independence still left in the world. I wanted to state my terms. I do not care to work or live on any others.

My terms are: A man’s RIGHT to exist for his own sake.”

now those are words to live by


93 posted on 04/13/2009 2:35:16 PM PDT by sfvgto (Dear Congress, my name is Jimmie....gimmie, gimmie, gimmie)
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To: wastedyears
I think a lot of people’s concern on here, including mine, is that the Act may not be written such that it abolishes the 16th Amendment the very same time that the Fair Tax would go into effect.

Per the Fair Tax Act:

SEC. 401. ELIMINATION OF SALES TAX IF SIXTEENTH AMENDMENT NOT REPEALED.

If the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is not repealed before the end of the 7-year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this Act, then all provisions of, and amendments made by, this Act shall not apply to any use or consumption in any year beginning after December 31 of the calendar year in which or with which such period ends, except that the Sales Tax Bureau of the Department of the Treasury shall not be terminated until 6 months after such December 31.
94 posted on 04/13/2009 4:51:33 PM PDT by Man50D (Fair Tax, you earn it, you keep it!)
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To: Man50D

bump^ Tea party time!


95 posted on 04/13/2009 4:52:45 PM PDT by FBD (My carbon footprint is bigger then yours)
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To: xzins

bravo! I agree


96 posted on 04/13/2009 4:56:56 PM PDT by FBD (My carbon footprint is bigger then yours)
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To: GOP_Lady

Maybe there should be no representation without taxation?

Still, I prefer the Fair Tax - tax consumption, not productivity.

Failing that, I’d like to see income tax withholding ended. We’d have a revolution by the next April 15.


97 posted on 04/14/2009 5:10:40 AM PDT by Little Ray (Do we have a Plan B?)
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To: GOP_Lady

Nothing is “free” in a socialist system either... somewhere, someone pays.


98 posted on 04/14/2009 5:11:31 AM PDT by Little Ray (Do we have a Plan B?)
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To: Lurker

That was before they invented Dreadnought style battleships. IIRC, one of the big reasons for the income tax was to fund the construction of a sufficiently potent navy.


99 posted on 04/14/2009 5:13:11 AM PDT by Little Ray (Do we have a Plan B?)
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To: All

So let me get this correct. It is a our civic, patriotic duty to pay taxes? Sounds an awful lot like something someone else once said:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video_log/2008/09/bidens_patriotic_taxes_comment.html


100 posted on 04/14/2009 5:22:22 AM PDT by EBH (The world is a balance between good & evil, your next choice will tip the scale.)
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