Colin, we disagree all right.
I am a flat tax proponent, though I admit due to current market
distortions owing to government's past and current meddling,
there are serious difficulties.
I DO NOT support anything like the many characterizations
of flat tax folks that have appeared in your many posts
on the subject, nor do I agree that one set of citizens
should be forced to pay for anothers' bad luck and possibly
poor planning (such as your example of the person with cancer,
since his tax deduction is my direct expense), or degenerate
life styles, or indigence, or laziness, or sleazy "art",
or a host of other things.
Asking is another story, but not forcing.
I will restate that there are significant difficulties
(and health care by any measure counts as a "significant
difficulty") owing to current market distortions by,
you guessed it, the same outfit that brought us the
tax code (a singularly well-named piece of work, though
perhaps cypher would be a bit better).
The current state of health care is one example; all the
CPAs, lawyers, and tax preparers the depend on the tax
industry for their livelihood is another; all the extra
and extraneous government workers those taxes support is
another; and etc. ad infinitum and ad nauseam.
I am a flat tax proponent who believes we cannot redress
past mistakes without recognizing them and actually correcting
them. These steps do not involve ignoring the problems
that have been generated; but neither do they allow for
perpetuating them.
If this sounds like I have a flat tax and serious tax and
government reduction mixed up, that's half right.
The two are part and parcel of the same thing, in my opinion;
they go together, but I don't have them mixed up. It would
certainly be possible (in theory) to continue to rob the
public at a flat rate. It would, however, be much harder,
and anyhow I'm not a proponent of it.
I'm also not optimistic, but that's another story entirely. |
