Posted on 09/30/2011 5:41:07 AM PDT by New Jersey Realist
'Suddenly, liberal Democrats are making the same argument about the tax code that I've been making for 20 years," laughs former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey. "Welcome to the party." Mr. Armey, who along with Steve Forbes has been the torch bearer for the flat tax since the early 1990s, believes that the latest applause line from President Obama that "billionaires should pay the same tax rate as janitors" may be the political gateway to sweeping tax reform.
Mr. Forbes sees an opening here too and says: "The flat tax is the perfect issue for these times. It fixes the economy and doesn't cost a dime." He's right. It's the teed-up GOP response to a jobless recovery and the near-universal sentiment among voters that the tax code is corrupt beyond repair.
That case is inadvertently helped as Mr. Obama and his new best friend, billionaire Warren Buffett, barnstorm the country trashing the tax system for, as the Oracle of Omaha puts it, "coddling the super rich." In truth, the system isn't nearly as skewed in favor of those at the top of the income pyramid as they allege: Today the top 1% pay 38% of the income tax. But in Washington, perception drives policy. The virtue of a flat tax with no deductions is that it provides an ironclad guarantee that the rich pay no lower a tax rate than janitors and secretaries.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Yea! That’s what I prefer, the flat tax.
Or a combination thereof....Herman Cain’s 9/9/9 idea is interesting.
All the more reason for Obama to hate it.
Russia has apparently done pretty well with a flat tax, from what I’ve read.
What I do know is this: Our current tax system is corrupt, unfair, and extremely destructive to our nation and our society. The current people in Washington, and CPAs across the nation, feed and nurture this true crisis.
Change is imperative.
I know I can't count on the current corrupt politician to make a good determination as to flat, fair, or whatever. The only thing I can do it support total regime change in Washington, and hope for leaders who care about the future of our nation.
But, do I pay the same tax rate since I'm jewish? Or, would that only be the case if I was a jewish janitor?
While I prefer a flat tax, I never confuse how taxes are collected with how much taxes are collected. We still have a huge overspending problem that needs fixing.
How about we cut government down to its constitutional size and, therefore, cut spending. Conservatives seem to be so dedicated to finding more efficient ways to fund the monstrous leviathan that is destroying us. My favorite is conservatives boasting that a tax cut will bring in more money. As if that’s a good thing. How about a tax cut that will bring in less money and starve the beast?
With about 50% of wage earners paying no tax, and some even getting a refund beyond what goes in, this idea is DOA, never going to happen.
The best we can hope for is a complete change to the fair tax or something very similar and an abolishment of the income tax by C amendment.
With all the money on K street in DC, any change that affects the livelyhood of those parasites may take an a bomb to actually change.
Speaking of Potomac City, recently went through that area and one would not know there is a serious recession in the country and very little construction in the outlying 57 er 50 states. That group is so insulated against any change to make them desire NONE. Very similar to Moscow under the commies when ordinary Russians could not even visit without special papers...sad. We have the best government that money can buy, even as we borrow the payment.
My husband and I agree. That flat tax is the way to go.
Most are missing the point of what is going on, it is not about taxes, not about which party is in control...it was all explained in this speech in a movie, Network...Ned Beatty is the speaker:
“...You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won’t have it!! Is that clear?! You think you’ve merely stopped a business deal. That is not the case. The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity! It is ecological balance!
You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels.
It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature....!
....You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.
What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state — Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do.
We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that perfect world in which there’s no war or famine, oppression or brutality — one vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock, all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused.”
And now we have the chairman of the board, our distinguished Leader to bring us there.
I’m against a national sales tax and if you think that 50% won’t pay a flat tax, then what makes you think they would pay on fair tax? The gov’t would issue them a tax exempt card.
Sorry, I won’t be sold on the fair tax.
The main reason I could support the fair tax or 9/9/9 is that it brings in the illegals who skirt the system entirely now. (As long as the current tax code is abolished.)
Flat is fair except that the tax should not be on income but consumption instead!
You misread my post...I use the 50% stat to show this will never get a majority vote in any Congress...why vote to tax yourself??
As far as avoiding the sales tax, exactly how does one do that besides bartering? Since barter is going on now, nothing lost IMO.
I like the idea of no tax on income...the fair tax does away with the FICA taxes entirely...if you think the general fund is not going to be used to fund SS and Medicare anyway in the near future, think again.
Right now we pay an effective 18-19% income rate on our joint income after the approximate 15% FICA taxes (yes the employers portion is actually paid on our earnings)....so, an approximate 15% or even 20% fair tax does not bother me a bit especially considering we get a prebate each month too.
THE reason any politician would oppose tax reform is that
1) it takes power away from the politicians so that they cannot manipulate it to favor or punish groups or individuals
2) taxes become more transparent so that your average joe actually sees how much they are taking from him.
Sales taxes are only on new items, not on used items.
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