Posted on 10/16/2006 10:42:14 AM PDT by jmc813
In Washington we hear a lot of talk about tax cuts, but the rhetoric does not always match the reality. For most Americans, taxes remain too complex and too high. After the tumult of the upcoming midterm election, it is imperative that Congress gets back to basics and addresses our terrible tax system.
Lower taxes benefit all Americans by increasing economic growth and encouraging wealth creation. I’m in favor of cutting everybody’s taxes – rich, poor, and otherwise. Whether a tax cut reduces a single mother’s payroll taxes by forty dollars a month, or allows a business owner to save thousands in capital gains and hire more employees, the net effect is beneficial. Both either spend, save, or invest the extra dollars, which helps all of us more than if those dollars were sent to the black hole known as the federal Treasury.
Many conservatives have touted the Fair Tax proposal as an issue in the upcoming election. A pure consumption tax like the Fair Tax would be better than the current system only if we truly did away with the income tax by repealing the 16th amendment. Otherwise, we could end up with both the income tax and a national sales tax. A consumption tax also provides more transparency and less complexity. But the real issue is total spending by government, not tax reform. In other words, why change the tax structure if spending stays the same? Once we accept that the federal government needs $2.7 trillion from us-- and more each year-- the only question left is from whom it will be collected. Until the federal government is held to its proper constitutionally limited functions, tax reform will remain a mirage.
I apply a very simple test to any proposal to overhaul the tax code: Does it reduce or eliminate an existing tax? If not, then it amounts to nothing more than a political shell game that pits taxpayers against each other in a lobbying scramble to make sure the other guy pays. True tax reform is as simple as cutting or eliminating taxes. No studies, panels, committees, or hearings are needed. When reform proposals seem complicated, they almost certainly don’t cut taxes. Congress should simply focus on cutting existing taxes and reducing spending, instead of complicated overhauls of the system.
The question to ask yourself is this: What would I do with the money withheld from my paycheck each month? The answer is simple: you would spend, save, or invest the money, all of which do more for the economy and society than sending it to Washington. Thanks to the deception of income tax withholding, however, some people actually look forward to tax time and a much-anticipated refund. Imagine how quickly Americans would demand lower taxes and spending if they had to write the federal government a check each month!
Tax relief is important, but members of Congress need to back up tax cuts with spending cuts- and they need to vote NO on every wasteful appropriations bill until we start over with the federal budget. True fiscal conservatism combines both low taxes and low spending.
Cutting spending would not be hard if Congress simply showed the political will to tackle the problem. I’m not talking about cutting the rate at which government spending grows, but cutting the actual amount of money spent by the federal government in a single year.
If federal spending grows at 5% rather than 7% one year, that’s hardly a great achievement on the part of Congress. The current federal budget of around $2.7 trillion could be cut to $2.5 trillion quite easily. The vast majority of Americans would not even notice. But we must begin chipping away at the federal budget if we hope to address the underlying problem of government debt.
I'm for repealing the 16th amendment. If we can do that, let's ditch the 17th as well. We've gone too far astray from the original idea of our republic.
--ditch the 17th as well. --
Bad idea. The transmission belt between the American people and their representatives is already broken. If we return to an appointed Senate, then Senators will be able to vote as they damn well please, without any consideration of the consensus of their constituents. If I hire a builder to build a split-level, I don't want him building a cape-codder because his "conscience" tells him to. Same thing with my Senator. A properly fuctioning legislature in a representative republic has it's finger on the pulse of the people.
Interesting catch 22, with a functioning income tax in place Congress will not repeal the 16th, as evidenced by a century of proposals to repeal the income tax amendment with no success whatsoever.
Looks to me we need to obsolete income taxes with a viable alternative in order to even hope to kill the 16th amendment and prohibiting them altogether.
--Repealing the 17th amendment would reinvigorate local politics, making state assembly races much more important than they are now. --
Maybe, but it would still turn the US Senate into a Frankenstein's monster that could do as it pleased without any restraint (other than a Presidential veto).
Dr. Paul, as usual, is 100% correct.
Paul / Tancredo '08
When Cindy Sheehan gave a list of her favorites in congress, Ron Paul was among them as they share the same views on the War on Terror.
We don't need that type in our government.
We don't need that type in our government.
What type is that?
"What type is that?"
I guess he means the type that doesn't believe that the USA is the world's babysitter, ready to spank any naughty nation anywhere in the world that kicks sand at another nation.
Your ron paul is left wing, anti war and pro impeachment of Bush and a cindy Sheehan fav.
His crap is righ out of DU
So we should stick our heads in the sand and pretend everything is quite alright... We tried that in 1930's, guess what it didn't work....
"So we should stick our heads in the sand and pretend everything is quite alright... We tried that in 1930's, guess what it didn't work...."
It's not quite as simple as that. The United States began to get itself involved in the Old World's messes after 1898 when it succmbed to the siren song of empire. Annexing HI, the Phillipines, Guam and Wake Island were huge mistakes (extending the US defense responsibilities well into the Western Pacific) we'd pay dearly for later. You can blame McKinley and TR (a hero to many here I know) for kicking us out of an Eden of sorts. Then came the criminal Woodrow Wilson, who hankered to get the US involved in the "Great War", when we had no stake in the outcome. The result; destruction of a relatively benign Imperial Germany and the groundwork laid for a real threat further down the road. As for the 1930s, FDR, much like Wilson, greatly desired getting the USA involved in what would become WWII; bullying and threatening Japan regarding its depredations in China was bound to lead to war; our bases extended so far out in the Western Pacific were easy prey to a Japanese sneak attack (which FDR probably desired). The rest is history.
--Sorry it wasn't that bad before they past the 17th ammendment..--
Maybe not, but I feel really uncomfortable about citizens having even less input into the way they are governed than they do at present, and having seen the hideously corrupt RI general assembly at work, I can't imagine that they would do any better than the awful Lincoln Chafee we are stuck with now.
Well then they had better hope people concentrate on the war because the GOP's record on two out of three is miserable.
His crap is righ out of DU
C'mon now..............................
step up and defend your position.
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