Posted on 05/28/2002 1:58:37 PM PDT by GluteusMax
At the "International Conference on Financing for Development," President Bush faced demands from UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and most of the rest of the world for more foreign aid from American taxpayers for bankrupt and deadbeat Socialist and Communist regimes. Foreign potentates and their allies put enormous pressure on the Bush administration to send more American tax dollars abroad, supposedly to help the Third World. And Bush buckled. He announced $10 billion in additional foreign aid over three years.
If Bush hadn't complied, he would have been portrayed as greedy and selfish. Even with the $10 billion, the foreign aid lobby wants more. Indeed, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) at the global forum before the official UN conference passed a resolution supporting global taxes on Americans which could generate billions or trillions of dollars. There was a heavy Cuban and Marxist presence at this event. Marijuana pipes were even for sale.
Before the conference, Treasury Secretary Paul Neill had been brutally honest, noting that, "Over the last 50 years the world has spent an awful large amount of money in the name of development without a great deal of success." A 1995 U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee report said the cost of foreign aid for the U.S. over this period has been $2 trillion.
But after meeting with rock star Bono, a proponent of Third World "debt relief," Bush decided to expand the foreign aid giveaway. Bono also persuaded Senator Jesse Helms to his cause of writing off bad loans to bankrupt regimes. In addition, Helms, who is retiring, has emerged as an advocate of more AIDS spending on Africa. According to one report, Bono's plea for the rest of the world reduced Helms to tears.
Terry Jeffrey of Human Events newspaper is crying for American taxpayers. He suggests that foreign rock stars like Bono be taxed at high rates to offset the cost of foreign aid.
Most of the NGOs at the Global Forum resent America's success. Rather than build up foreign countries by developing their own resources in the context of capitalism and free markets, the NGOs at the Global Forum want to reduce America to their level. They want to loot America's wealth and transfer our money to the rest of the world. In the process, of course, they acquire control over other peoples' lives. That gives them power and big salaries.
Foreign Aid Sex Scandal
Tragically, evidence has been uncovered showing that the foreign assistance being provided to some countries is being used as leverage to force poor people, mostly children, to have sex with UN personnel and aid workers. Investigators found a widespread and "possibly endemic" culture of sexual exploitation of children in West African refugee camps. The UN personnel, including "peacekeepers" and others were demanding sexual favors from children, mostly girls, in exchange for food rations, shelter, education and medicine.
The targeting of refugee children occurred in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. "In all three countries," said a report from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and Save the Children of the United Kingdom, "agency workers from international and local NGOs as well as UN agencies were reportedly the most frequent exploiters of children, often using the very humanitarian aid and services intended to benefit the refugee population as a tool of exploitation." The report stated that UN peacekeepers were "among the highest paying customers for sex with children." It said some peacekeepers would pool their money to obtain a girl and then all of them would have sex with the same child.
So foreign aid has now become an evil that is used to exploit the most vulnerable among us.
The Global Tax Plan
Extreme left and Communist forces at home and abroad are mobilizing to pressure the Bush administration to endorse even more foreign aid spending. Their ultimate goal is implementation of the Tobin Tax, named after the late Yale University economist James Tobin, who signed a letter before the November 2000 presidential election claiming that the proposed Bush tax cuts for the American people were too large. James Tobin wants higher taxes. His Tobin Tax is a tax on international currency transactions in the foreign currency markets. This has been called the world's largest financial market - between $1.2 trillion and $2 trillion a day is exchanged. Proponents call the Tobin Tax the "Robin Hood Tax" because it supposedly taxes the rich to benefit the poor. But it would affect ordinary Americans' IRAs, Mutual Funds and pensions - any vehicle with money that is invested abroad.
In a letter, the office of U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, John Negroponte, said that, "The U.S. delegation opposed global taxation" and worked to eliminate references to that item in the final "Financing for Development" conference document. But the U.S. delegation was not completely successful. The final conference document includes language recognizing the value of exploring "innovative sources of finance." This opens the door for global taxes and a global IRS.
This means that the "last remaining superpower," the U.S., didn't have the power to resist international pressure for more foreign aid. This is a dangerous precedent. The American people have to understand that what is being proposed is a massive expansion of foreign aid to the tune of trillions of dollars.
In the U.S., welfare reform has reduced the number of loafers and deadbeats on the public payroll. But reform of the global welfare system hasn't even been attempted yet.
President Bush recently said, "We need to make sure that work is an integral part of any welfare reauthorization; that the cornerstone of a good bill understands that when we help somebody find work... that leads to more independence, more self-esteem, and more joy and hope." But the current foreign aid program creates dependence and more poverty. And now he wants to spend more on it.
Bush speaks of "conditions" attached to the aid but we don't know what they are. The odds are that the NGOs themselves will continue to monitor and distribute the aid, reporting back that everything is going as planned.
Like addicts and freeloaders, the foreign aid recipients have to go through a "cold turkey" process of achieving independence on their own. At the same time, the global tax schemes have to be confronted and defeated.
Former UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali endorsed global taxes, including an international tax on airline travel. The U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) in 1996 published a report on how both the Clinton Administration and the UN were promoting "alternative revenue raising proposals."
Many members of Congress were outraged and introduced various bills to stop it. But the bills never passed and the UN moved forward with its plans, which are reminiscent of King George's foreign taxes on the American colonists. That caused a revolution. Today, the American people have to rekindle that revolutionary spirit and "throw the bums out" at the UN scheming to steal more of our income and spend it on global welfare.
UN promotion of a global tax dates back to 1994, when the UNDP "Human Development Report" featured an article by Tobin himself describing the idea. The same document included an article declaring:
"Mankind's problems can no longer by solved by national governments. What is needed is a world government." The UN intention is to become a world government with a world army and an International Criminal Court (ICC) that could put Americans in jail for various "crimes," including not paying their "fair share" of global taxes. The ICC will have universal jurisdiction, even over countries that don't sign or ratify the ICC treaty.
What country before ever existed a century & a half without a rebellion? & what country can preserve it's liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is it's natural manure.
It's even worse than that...10 BILLION down the rat hole. Mr. Bush seems to tread lightly when it comes to causes dear to the one-world crowd. He makes moves to pacify both sides which ultimately helps the one-worlders more.
EBUCK
How far did that crazy scheme go before it was struck down?
As far as a committee proposal and died there. Unfortunately that is just one of many coming at us (e.g. Bush's commodities tax first mentioned), just waiting in the weeds and a full transaction tax one can be introduced again whenever they figure they have the backing for it.
See:
http://www.smartvoter.org/2000/11/07/ca/state/vote/camahort_j/
Far as I can see, the only protection we can ever have against these kind of hidden taxes, is to work to implement a single national tax that is totally visible to the electorate and outlaw all the rest. The only ones that seem to fit that bill are a pure Retail sales taxes and excises in the nature of fuel taxes.
Everything else gets buried in the price structure of consumer goods and services leaving the electorate unaware of the real burden placed on them.
For example the Individual Income Tax return(1040) that captures everyone's attention each April, is merely a partial VAT accounting sheet the government coerces individuals, held at ransom, into filling out. Its misdirection puts blinders on the eyes of the electorate, and totally distorts their perceptions as to the real impact of taxation in our lives.
Every man woman and child in the nation, pays federal taxes through that VAT.
DO YOU PAY YOUR INCOME TAX
AT THE SUPERMARKET?
by D. Sherman Cox J.D. L.L.M. Taxation
The full impact of the federal tax system(taxes in gross wage/salaries & other compensation + business income/payroll taxes) added onto the base(taxfree) price of retail consumption goods and services is 36% for federal taxes alone.
All wages and the taxes on them are paid for out of sales receipts to business,(i.e. consumption expenditure).
Federal tax revenues collected as % of current family expenditure = fed/(1-state-fed-savings) =
23.5/(1-.235-0.102-0.012) = 36.09%
If we add in the cost of federal tax compliance, planning, litigation & enforcement, the percentage that truely represents the burden on the family due to the Federal income/payroll tax system, product prices are increased by more than 55% over taxfree prices.
Where Have All the Dollars Gone?
How the government robs Peter to pay him back.
By economist James L. Payne, Reason Magazine February '94When the overhead costs are added together, (24 percent compliance costs, 33 percent disincentive costs, and 8 percent other costs), they total 65 percent of tax revenue.
Current total Federal tax revenues are about $1900billion, more than $1,000 billion additional dollars are added on onto consumption prices due to the business costs of complying with the federal income/payroll tax laws.
The percent total current federal burden (taxes + compliance costs) of consumption dollars = 36*(1900+1000)/1900 = 54.95% economic burden added on to base retail(i.e. taxfree) prices.
Too bad that citizens don't get a receipt detailing those "hidden sales taxes" buried in their consumption purchases. If they ever did, some of those 70% of the public clamoring for more from government, thinking someone else foots the bill, might be tempted to change their mind.
EBUCK
The math is just adjusting the "gross" federal tax base, to what a person actually sees and can say they own, their takehome pay, and from which all commerce must derive.
As provable as any number is, it all ultimately derives from government statistics on GDP, the Federal Budget & Treasury/IRS reports of total government revenues.
Something abit easier to understand, placed in terms of gross income (which most people relate to), instead of consumption expenditure & takehome pay:
According to the Tax Foundation, in 2001 the tax burdent on the average American was 23.6% of his or her income in federal taxes, plus 10.2% in state and local taxes = 33.8% total.
Unfortunately that is just the beginning, The burden of government in this nation is much more than the federal revenue collected each year.
Dr. James Payne of the University of California, Reason Magazine '94; found that in addition to direct taxes we also pay huge, hidden taxes including:
- Tax compliance costs: record keeping, reporting, filling out forms, and learning about tax regulations.
- Costs of tax enforcement: resources expended in responding to the tax authority. Each act of tax enforcement--each audit, each notice, each levy--entails a burden for the citizen subject to it.
- Tax disincentive costs: the loss of production because of the discouraging effect of taxes on investment and labor.
"When the overhead costs are added together, (24 percent compliance costs, 33 percent disincentive costs, and 8 percent other costs), they total 65 percent of tax revenue."
And even that figure doesn't include the cost of import duties, license fees and other government regulations. For a typical U.S. family, the real cost of taxes and regulations as a percent of gross income is at least:
Federal taxes 23.6%(taxfoundation)
State & local taxes 10.2%(taxfoundation)
Overhead costs 21.9%(James L. Payne)
Regulatory costs 13.0%(M.W. Hodges)
More than 68% of one's income is now consumed by government through tax collections, tax compliance overhead & regulation.
Everyone should read this!!!
EBUCK
EBUCK
The sooner that people realise that all business can do is pass costs back to the consumer or go bankrupt, the sooner we might understand that the poorest welfare mother on the block pays virtually the same tax as the richest among us.
The whole scam of taxation is nothing more than a shell game to create the impression of a free lunch for selected constituencies that are inclined to support more spending. Unfortunately that scam works all too well, and hits us all with that additional cost of complying with the tax code besides.
What most folks perceive is best explained by
Walter Williams, World Net Daily, 10-25-2000
According to the most recent U.S. Treasury Department figures, in 1997 the top 1 percent of income-earners (those with income of $250,000 and higher) paid 33 percent of all federal income taxes. The top 5 percent of income-earners ($108,000 and over) paid 52 percent, and the top 50 percent ($36,000 and over) paid 96 percent of income taxes. Guess what the bottom 50 percent of income earners paid?
If you're among those who pay little or no federal income taxes, what do you care about tax cuts? Moreover, if you think tax cuts pose a threat to government handout programs, you might be openly hostile and support Al Gore's silly "risky scheme" talk. So many Americans paying little or no federal taxes makes for a natural spending constituency. It's like me in the restaurant: What do I care about extravagance if you're footing the bill?
The reality is that taxation hits everyone at the market through the mechanisms of commerce that pay the wages, salaries, dividend, interest, ... on which we all derive our livelyhood and pay taxes through:
Overhead, at least as I understand it, would be the use of already collected tax dollars to perform gubment functions and not an actual tax.
Overhead is what it costs businesses and individuals to plan for, calculate, & litigate their tax payments. It is a cost of business added onto the price of goods and services above and beyond the payment of the tax to government.
What it costs to preform those government functions comes out of the taxes collected, and is another story altogether.
You know, I really enjoy our conversations until I realize that this aint fiction and it aint some European country we're talking about. Have you seen any predictions related to when the bubble cannot sustain itself any longer?
EBUCK
Have you seen any predictions related to when the bubble cannot sustain itself any longer?
It will keep going as long as people continue to believe in Uncle Toothfairy.
Until a sizable portion of that 70% of the public clamoring for more from government, thinking someone else foots the bill, gets the message. It'll keep going, until the upper 30% paying the freight all end up in Burmuda and reality dawns.
Sounds nice, but--he won't be a Democrat either. And, anyone I can imagine from a minor party won't be electable. Very sad.
Here's what Thomas Jefferson would have said........“To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical. A wise and frugal government ... shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. ... Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare but only those specifically enumerated"..... Thomas Jefferson
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