Free Republic

One of the more intriguing new websites on the political blogoshere is POPVOX. POPVOX is an interactive site that enables individual citizens to weigh in on bills introduced into congress. You can vote for/against bills in the house or senate and you can also make a comment that will be displayed on the respective Bill Report page and forwarded to your respective representative/senator. POPVOX also has a mapping facility which shows where support\opposition to a bill is coming from geographically. You can drill down to CD level all the way up to state and national. HR 25 (The FairTax) made...

Washington, DC—On Wednesday, January 5, 2011, Congressman Rob Woodall (GA-07) introduced H.R. 25, the FairTax. The FairTax legislation eliminates the current income tax paradigm and replaces it with a system of taxation based on consumption. The bill was introduced on Wednesday with 47 original co-sponsors—the most original co-sponsors the bill has ever had for its initial introduction. “I committed to the Seventh District of Georgia that my efforts in Congress would focus on reclaiming freedom for the American people. It is for that reason that I am proud to make the FairTax—the only bill that restores transparency and simplicity to...

We are speeding toward an economic cliff because our government can't practice restraint. We spend so much more than we take in because politicians at every level use the public treasury to win elections. The public mostly accepts lavish promises of more and more federal spending because the cost of government has been so effectively divorced from what actually comes out of our paychecks. Ask almost anyone how they did on their taxes and you're likely to hear a happy exclamation that the taxpayer got a little money back! But ask the same person how much they paid the government...

SHANGHAI — China has overtaken the U.S. as the world's biggest market for automobiles, the first time any other country has bought more vehicles than the nation that produced Henry Ford, the Cadillac and the minivan. Now that the Chinese buy more cars and trucks than Americans, the shift could produce ripples for the environment, gas prices and even the kinds of cars automakers design. More than 12.7 million cars and trucks will be sold in China this year, up 44 percent from the previous year and surpassing the 10.3 million forecast in the U.S., according to J.D. Power and...

For the last several years, when people have instructed me that human activity was causing a dangerous increase in global temperatures, my response has been, "Then tell me, what should the temperature be?" Should it be the temperatures that the planet experienced a thousand years ago, during which Greenland was settled as a farming community and during which wine grapes were grown in Scotland? Should it be the temperatures of three hundred years ago, when the Little Ice Age ended the inhabitation of Greenland and the Thames iced over? Should it be the temperatures of 829 A.D., when the Nile...

Today’s hearing offers a timely reminder of the difference between the fantasyland of Washington, D.C., and the reality of the rest of America. Here in fantasyland, we’ll discuss adding one more multi-billion dollar entitlement program. This would be on top of the new higher education entitlement program created this year, and of course our current health care and retirement entitlement programs, whose looming insolvency recently led President Obama to admit “we’re broke.” But we’re actually worse than broke. We’re massively in debt, and it’s getting deeper every day. USA Today reported last week that in 2008 the average U.S. household...

In today’s Washington Post, the White House floats a really scary trial balloon—a new national Value-Added Tax (VAT) to pay for out-of-control spending and a Washington take over of health care. Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad appears to be on board. So does Ezekiel Emanuel, brother of White House chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel, who has been hired by the White House budget office to help design the health care plan and whose book on health care uses a VAT to fund the new government program. Obama economic adviser Paul Volcker is also on-board the VAT-train. ————— "We need to draw...

On May 19, Californians sent a message that the people mean business when it comes to high taxes and big spending. Four ballot initiatives in a special election intended to allow the state government to raise taxes to cover a 21 billion dollar budget shortfall, were soundly defeated sending an unwelcome message to Sacramento that the people picking up the tab for California’s liberal policies have had enough. But it didn’t start, nor did it end, on May 19 in California. Organic tax protests that started as “tea parties” have grown and are now taking shape in different forms even...

WASHINGTON – Social Security and Medicare are fading even faster under the weight of the recession, heading for insolvency years sooner than previously expected, the government warned Tuesday. Social Security will start paying out more in benefits than it collects in taxes in 2016, a year sooner than projected last year, and the giant trust fund will be depleted by 2037, four years sooner, trustees reported. Medicare is in even worse shape.

Although we tend to think of the current political system in terms of Republicans vs Democrats and Liberals vs Conservatives, the real power and money flows indicate that a more realistic assessment would be to think of the system in terms of incumbents vs everyone else. The authors make the case that large $$$ special interest groups have co-opted the political system and hi-jacked individual representatives on such a massive scale that the entire system has been corrupted. This presentation is especially persuasive in following the money trail of two Utah congressmen - one Democrat and one Republican.

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...

WASHINGTON -- The No. 1 problem facing U.S. taxpayers? A tax code so complex that Americans spend $193 billion per year just trying to figure out how much they owe, said Nina Olson, the National Taxpayer Advocate, in her annual report to Congress on Wednesday. That amounts to 14% of all income taxes collected, according to Ms. Olson. Tax-code changes have averaged one per day over the past eight years -- with 500 changes in 2008 alone, she said.

From the producers of Wordplay and the studio that brought you Supersize Me, the must-see documentary I.O.U.S.A. uncovers the source of critical economic concerns that touch the lives of every American. A tapestry of archival footage, hard data and candid interviews woven together, it paints an authentic profile of today’s economic condition. Solutions for how we can impact this nationwide crisis and evolve into a more fiscally sound nation for future generations are offered by the documentary’s powerful conclusion. “May be to the U.S. Economy what An Inconvenient Truth was to the environment.” - Reuters

This is the latest tax reform poll that I have seen. This is from an interesting website in which members develop their own polls.

Dan Mitchell requests that interested parties send in e-mail responses to his proposal to 1. pass the flat tax 2. repeal the 16th 3. pass the FairTax

An alleged tax-fraud scheme involving donations of overvalued art to four local museums is part of a larger, unchecked problem with inflated art appraisals that has cost the federal government untold millions, a Times analysis has found. Each year, the Internal Revenue Service audits donations claimed on only a handful of the 100,000 or more tax returns that allow art donors to reap nearly $1 billion in tax write-offs. Half of the donations checked over the last 20 years had been appraised at nearly double their actual value.

That money will attack what the foundation considers "the most substantial economic, fiscal and other sustainability challenges of our current age" -- including federal entitlement programs, health care, unprecedented trade and budget deficits, low savings rates, mounting foreign debt, soaring energy consumption, an uncompetitive educational system, and the proliferation of nuclear warfare materials. Maybe Congress will listen this time. "I have been around a very long time, and I have never seen so many simultaneous challenges that I would describe as undeniable, unsustainable and virtually untouchable politically," Peterson said in a prepared statement.

Fans of political irony will appreciate that Democrats in Congress are saying they now want to address the "wealth gap" even as they deplore and want to eliminate the Alternative Minimum Tax, or AMT. It was a previous crusade against the wealthy that created the AMT. Haven't we learned anything about the perils of tax policy rooted in political envy? The AMT became law in 1969 after LBJ's last Treasury Secretary, Joseph Barr, created a liberal uproar by disclosing that 21 millionaires had managed to pay little or no income tax in 1967. Thus the "alternative" tax was designed to...

Within the next ten years the income tax system in the United States will be dismantled. A number of emerging new forces coupled with the universal dislike of the system will soon gain enough of a toehold to cause it to collapse. State income tax systems will be dismantled either shortly thereafter or at the same time. It is a system that has mushroomed out of control, and few will mourn its parting. The current tax system is deeply entrenched in our society. Many industries rely on tax filings for verification of income, statistical information, and research data. Social security...

Executive Summary In 2005, taxpayers will pay roughly $1.2 trillion in federal income taxes. But America’s tax burden is more than just the amount of tax paid. It also includes the cost of complying with federal taxes, including tax planning, paperwork and other hassles caused by tax complexity. In the last century the cost of tax compliance has grown tremendously. This is due partly to the inherent difficulty of taxing income, but also because of growing non-economic demands lawmakers place on the tax code. As Congress debates the tax reform recommendations of the President’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform,...