Posted on 10/15/2004 4:35:45 PM PDT by tpaine
Why is this article coming from a gun-rights group?
Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (of which one of the co-authors is executive director) is a Second Amendment educational foundation, not an economic think tank. So why is this article coming from us?
Two reasons. One: The tax will be used to attack and limit gun ownership;
Two, it's bad for freedom, and what's bad for freedom is bad for all gun owners.
It is painfully obvious to anyone who observes the tactics of the federal government (and the lobbying groups that buzz around it like flies) that a national sales tax will be used to attack gun ownership. Already, under the planned tax, anyone who wants to buy an imported firearm like a Glock or a SIG Sauer may have to pay 30 percent more than any American equivalent. But the ardent, and persistent gun prohibitionists in Congress – people like Hillary Clinton, Charles Schumer, Dianne Feinstein, Caroline McCarthy, and John Kerry – will never be content with that.
Do you want to see a 500 percent tax on firearms? A 1,000 percent tax on ammunition? A 200 percent tax on targets, smokeless powder, camouflage clothing, and knives? Then tell your Congressperson you want a national sales tax. Our second reason is that, as horrible as the IRS and the income tax are, the FairTax proposal is even worse for freedom.
Particularly worrying is the plan to put every single American household on federal welfare. Many households will become desperately dependent on government payments to help them survive the higher price of food, clothing, transportation, health care, and shelter. Wealthier people will simply see their monthly handout as an entitlement, a bonus – fun money to help fund their spending sprees.
Either way, a direct payment from the federal government each month will make people less inclined to protest injustice, less inclined to make waves, even when waves are seriously needed. Because people won't want to risk losing their monthly "freebie," they'll be less inclined to look critically upon the government – and more inclined to oppose anybody who threatens to cut off their monthly handout.
It's all a matter of perception; in all too many cases, people are going to view their $500 freebies as being more important than the even higher – but incrementally smaller – amounts they pay out in sales taxes day by day. They'll say (as so many do with government handouts now), "I'm entitled. After all, I'm only getting my own money back."
And besides, millions of households will be happily gaming the system – collecting their monthly handouts while buying tax-free goods on the black market. Big government will have achieved its ultimate dream: Citizens will like higher taxes.
In the end, as tyranny tightens its iron grip, Americans will be less inclined to bite the fist that they believe feeds them – even if they're actually paying more in taxes than they do now. All they'll see is that freedom might threaten their government payment. And since fewer will be able to buy guns, even those who want to fight a future tyrant will have a harder time doing so. Some time ago, we wrote an article claiming that gun-rights and Social Security couldn't co-exist in the long run (http://www.jpfo.org/ssandguns.htm). We'll go further now and add that gun-rights and a national sales tax cannot and will not co-exist in the long run.
We sincerely hope we're wrong. But from where we stand, the conclusion seems inescapable: Imposition of a national sales tax will inflict the same kind of long-term damage to American society that was earlier inflicted by imposition of the income tax, the adoption of fiat currency, and life-consuming programs like the New Deal and the Great Society. And it will be coming at a time when America's fiscal health is already too shaky to absorb one more such blow.
What type of tax do we propose instead?
Now comes the moment where we're supposed to propose our alternative. "Be constructive," someone will demand. "If you don't like their proposal, what have you got to offer that's better?"
Here's our alternative: Nothing.
Ban the income tax, definitely. Banish it. Disband the Internal Revenue Service and auction their buildings to the highest bidder. Let all the IRS auditors, clerks, and armed enforcers get honest jobs. But don't replace the income tax with any tax, of any variety.
The United States survived until 1913 without an income tax. It survived until World War II without wage withholding (a federal trick "for the duration of the war" that increased tax collections enormously). The income tax has enabled and encouraged wild governmental spending sprees. And irony of ironies, the federal government has now gotten so drunk on reckless spending and its attendant debt that (5) an amount equivalent to all the income taxes collected west of the Mississippi River accomplishes nothing but helping pay the interest on that debt! You pay and pay and you're not even getting government services for your money. Just paying off debt that should never have been incurred – and probably wouldn't have been incurred if Americans hadn't been forced to hand over so much money to government.
If you want smaller government, then don't spend your time thinking of "better" ways to feed big government. If you want freedom, don't fall for ploys that simply enable to government to find new routes into your pocket and your life.
If you want to tame the beast of tyranny – starve it into submission. Ban the income tax. Trash the unFairTax. And put the government back on a leash.
Article I, Section 8. The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;The NRST is already Constitutional since a sales tax is also known as an "excise tax", just like that which is currently collected on alcohol, tobacco and gasoline. If there is a portion of the NRST proposal that IS unconstitutional, it is their redefinition of real property (specificly, new homes purchased by individuals) as a "consumable good". This Trojan Horse strikes a stake in the heart of fundamental property rights that have existed for centuries.
Our Founders have already debated this issue, and arrived at the method of taxation that is LEAST oppressive of our own citizenry and industry:
The First Federal Revenue Law
On April 8, James Madison, once again a congressman from Virginia, addressed the House. He went right to the point. Congress, he said, must "remedy the evil" of "the deficiency in our Treasury." He argued that "[a] national revenue must be obtained," but not in a way "oppressive to our constituents." He then proposed that the House adopt legislation, virtually identical to the unimplemented Confederation tariff, imposing a five-percent tariff on all imports....
...A single, uniform tariff, he insisted, had two advantages. First, it could be imposed quickly, which was important because "the prospect of our harvest from the Spring importations is daily vanishing." Second, it was consistent with the principles of free trade ("commercial shackles," he said, "are generally unjust, oppressive, and impolitic")
The uniform, flat-rate "revenue tariff" was not immune from tinkering and abuse by special interests, of course. For that reason, I could be in favor of a constitutional amendment that would modify the wording of Article I, section 8 to be similar to the changes that were proposed in the Confederate Constitution:
Article I, Section 8
The Congress shall have power -
1. To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises for revenue, necessary to pay the debts, provide for the common defense, and carry on the Government of the Confederate States; but no bounties shall be granted from the Treasury; nor shall any duties or taxes on importations from foreign nations be laid to promote or foster any branch of industry; and all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the Confederate States.
That post had nothing to do with the discussion...
What do you mean?
You're talking about the Constitutional authority of the so-called "Fair" Tax, aren't you?
No, we were talking about Democrats using sales tax as a social engineering tool to tax items like guns out of existance.
Then my comment is still applicable because you'd have to restrict them from enacting different excise (sales) tax rates the same way they boogered the uniform, flat-rate revenue tariff with a much more complex schedule dictated by special interests.
The national sales tax is nothing more than the Value Added Tax. It's the trojan horse the socialists in Europe have been using for decades to finance their productivity choking socialist utopias.
BAD IDEA!
No, we were talking about Democrats using sales tax as a social engineering tool to tax items like guns out of existance.
Not true. - You and the articles authors may think you have established that hyped up point, -- but I can't see where.
Nothing in the Fair Tax bill, or in our Constitution, -- would allow such "tools".
New homes purchased by individuals) are indeed a "consumable good", willie.
As you would know if you've ever had to repair one that was trashed by 'Zero Down' deadbeats.
What are YOU babbling about?
The "Fair" Tax is a stinkin' EXCISE tax.
They already USE that "tool" to tax the bejezuss out of tobacco, alcohol and gasoline.
Once they expand the excise tax to cover everything else sold at retail,
what's gonna stop them from attacking anything else they deem politicly incorrect to purchase?
I'd never be stupid enough to sell one to 'zero down' deadbeats.
A home is an investment.
You better have good enough credit to give me my cash up front if you want to buy mine.
I'm not gonna fall victim to your stinkin' creative financing scam.
Our Constitutuonal rule of law will stop them, willie. -- As long as there aren't too many slick willies allowing them to ignore our BOR's, that is.
I'd never be stupid enough to sell one to 'zero down' deadbeats.
Plenty of banks do so, then hire guys like me to fix their stupidity. Nevertheless, homes are consumable, depreciable assets.
A home is an investment.
Keep it up, and indeed it is. Trash it & all you have is the land it stands on.
You better have good enough credit to give me my cash up front if you want to buy mine. I'm not gonna fall victim to your stinkin' creative financing scam.
How weird. Do you really think I have a home fiance scam willy? -- You need help.
From 1933(FDR) until Nixon changed the policy, it was illegal for private citizens to own gold. Exceptions were made for jewelry and manufacturing. I worked in the jewelry industry in the late sixties - we had to account for every speck of gold. The government paperwork was horrendous.
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