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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (667100)	1/4/2005 10:04:12 PM
From: Johannes Pilch	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Good, since EVERY SINGLE ONE INTRODUCED AROUND THE WORLD OVER THE LAST DECADE OR SO HAS DEMONSTRATED VERY GOOD RESULTS. Again, while I think a flat tax would be a great improvement over the current system, it still is highly intrusive and anti-freedom. That some countries have had would you call "very good" results is no reason to give up a desire for greater freedom. Moreover, while some countries such as Russia and some Baltic states, have had "very good" results relative to what they had prior to their flat tax structures, compliance and cheating in these economies were very serious issues to begin with. Well, DUH! [Taking people's production by force is] the definition of taxes! Well since to you this definition of taxes is sufficient to warrant our actually encouraginge the government to intrude in our lives to such an extent it forces us to publish to it our incomes and other highly personal information about ourselves and families, then you would have little problem with the government invading our bank accounts to take from our savings what it wishes at its will. After all, that is the meaning of taxes. We have a very basic philosophical difference here that cannot be reconciled. I understand the government needs revenue to function, but I also understand that I have a right to own my person, to own goods, and to own my production resulting of the comination of both, without government forcing me at its whim to act as a sharecropper. I wish to keep the government out of my business as much as possible and think to this end we can do much better than a leftist light flat tax. Wrong!!!!!! It's the multiplicity of loopholes that requires a large bureacracy. A flat tax system with only a loophole for charitable contributions and a home mortgage deduction could result in the elimination of about 90% of the IRS's positions. A consumption tax, on the other-hand, would require a HUGE new bureaucracy to enforce. There needs be no loopholes at all in a consumption tax. Even so, I can scarcely see how this job could not get done with a federal tax agency of 16,000 people (dear me). Of course it is! (The system of payroll deductions would function the same as it does now.) That is the problem, of course. Oh YEAH!!!!! We REALLY want people deciding what to eat (or WHEN to eat) based on a complicated federal system of taxes and exemptions!!!!! You must LOVE huge bureaucracies and federal intrusion into every private economic act. Nonsense. Regardless of what people eat or when they eat it, they must make decisions in view of the government that takes their money however the government takes it, whether by a consumption tax or a tax on production. The same applies to saving and investing. Additionally, the government needs no more to "intrude into every private economic act" (yeah, Buddy. Gotta build that straw monster!) than states do. Trade details are generally kept by purchasers and sellers, just as they are currently. NOTHING is 'minimal' if it has to finance the entire federal government! Well. This point is not worth arguing, though I never said it was "minimal". I instead said the logistical impact to families of a consumption tax would be 'minimal relative to a flat tax,' since families would have to change nothing and file nothing. Incentives for tax cheating are FAR LESS under any reasonably simple flat rate system (assuming reasonably low tax rates). EVERY SINGLE ONE ENACTED has demonstrated this beneficial effect. How do you argue with proven success? Success at the price of freedom is not success at all. ONE WORD: blackmarket! The word does not exist. Consider not yelling and screaming so much here. I agree. The growth of government continues at an alarming rate... but it cannot logically ever reach 100% of the GNP, so it MUST hit a ceiling (or, better still: fall) at some point. Of course trusting in this "ceiling" to do for us what sound fiscal policy can do proactively is just a leftist's dream and America's nightmare. We can do much better than this, and we ought to. A consumption tax would force us to make the changes in spending philosophy we need to make. Someone???????? Try: 50 States, and countless localities. How do you propose that they pay for schools, fire departments, water and sewer? Is the federal government going to pick up the tab and abolish local government? (LOL, I THINK NOT....) Of course states will have to change their spending philosophies also. Two of my children received their PSAT scores recently. Both were at the 99th percentile and one of them is a sophmore. When I can spend peanuts relative to public funded school systems and yet turn out scholar after scholar who are far superior to the vast majority of publicly schooled scholars, it tells me that states are spinning their wheels and wasting a lot of money in the process. Negative. the federal government ALREADY TRACKS income... but they DO NOT currently track the imposition of sales taxes on HUNDREDS of BILLIONS of transactions, at EVERY LEVEL of the distribution chain. And the feds won't have to track every transaction under a consumption tax (dear me). THAT WAY lies the creation of the LARGEST FEDERAL BUREAUCRACY in the history of the world. Well okay then. (The only 'obvious nonsense' was your use of the word "REQUIRED".) The wealthy are required to eat and produce if they wish to continue eating. [in fact: the percentage of their incomes on average that they choose to invest - over spending - is far higher then the percent invested by the middle class or poor.] Irrelevant. The lifestyle differences between wealthy and poor would in simple terms mean the wealthy would pay more than the poor. It is QUITE RELEVANT if you wish to consider the equity of the federal tax burden (as any good government should). It depends on what you mean by "equity." HaHaHaHaHaHA!!!!!!!!!! And, as long as you are ASSUMING things not in evidence... why not assume* that pigs can fly, so we can all have bacon in the sky?* I didn't assume anything. I simply reiterated that a change in spending philosophy likely must accompany a transition to a consumption tax. But hey. It seems you are passionately attached to the idea of a flat tax and I am done having to read your screams and howls. You need not worry so much as you apparently do. The consumption tax won't be a threat to the leftist flat tax, since a well-designed consumption tax would be fairer and would offer Americans the greatest degree of control and freedom.