Posted on 01/28/2003 7:17:20 PM PST by Mocha_Man
If you think elections are the process, then you misunderstand the process.
The drain on the economy of single people comes from types like you, but more dangerously to the well being of hard working singles, the really horendous drain on our money comes from illegals, like the ones in wal-mart or at western union sending money to mexico, with 4 or 5 kids in uncontrolled tow.
Second, by no means did I compare my pets to anyone's children. I said I was fortunate to have a boss that is a pet lover and understands these things.
I completely understand what it means to have a sick child. There are, as my specific experience has been, people who take advantage of that for their own reasons. I happen to have worked with folks who have used their children as an excuse to miss work. Yeah, I know I don't have a child, but does a normal child get sick on average 6-10 days a month? Put that on top of the eventual sickness of the parent, and we're talking a lot of missed days. And as for parents in the plural sense, well, maybe I live in a more traditional part of the country, but it always seems to be the moms that miss work (although I do know a guy who takes care of his kids whenever they are sick).
I know that everyone isn't like this. And no, not everyone I work with who has children is like this. But there are abusers everywhere.
As for comparing my pets to your child, my pets are my children, so until the day I have kids of my own, they get treated as such (and probably will be treated the same when I do have children). Thankfully, they don't get sick that often. And when they do and I have to miss work, I make sure to work extra hours to make up for it.
In all honesty, it really comes down to what type of ehtics, work and otherwise, people have.
And yes, I have been on the other end of this as well. When my mother was dying from cancer, I missed a LOT of work because I was the only one who took care of her. There were no other family members or friends that could help. As such, various (not all) co-workers complained about me missing work and I got written up. Was I pissed? Damn straight. Did I develop some empathy for others? Oh yeah (mainly because I was the first on our team to deal with a dying parent).
But there is a difference between those who truly have medical/family emergencies such as sick kids etc., and those who use their kids as a crutch to miss work. And that's where my problem is.
I have 8 kids and make a little over 50k per year. I pay no federal taxes and due to the child tax credit I get a couple of thousand dollars each year that I never paid. Some freepers think I'm horrible and others congratulate me for having 8 kids.
Fifty years from now, most of your stuff will be in a landfill. Fifty years from now, my kids will be looking back on productive, happy lives. They will be taxpayers. They will be the doctors who care for you, the nurses who clean up after your senile messes in the nursing home, and the mortician who prepares you for your final ride. If this country is to be greater than it is now, they and their generation will have to make it so, because you and I will be dead.
Your stuff's only purpose in existence is to make you happy. My kids' purpose in existence, in part, is to give America a future. Do you see any difference there?
If everyone lived like you and the originator of this thread do, with your values, this country would be extinct in a century. And that may well be where we're headed. Think about something bigger than yourself sometime.
Looking at your profile - aren't you on my side??
Every person child, adult, single, married, rich or poor should be taxed in precisely the same manner, having the same exemptions and by the same rate.
Your argument seems to result in something different from that, in arguing that childern should be taxed with a different exclusion and deducibility of their income(e.g. support) from anyone else.
Ultimately, I resolve into the argument that income and payroll taxes are inherently unfair and devisive and should be replaced by a onetime, single stage, single rate tax on all goods and services paid by every individual in the nation. No person, whatever stripe, should be immune from participating in the tax system.
I agree 140%
and should be replaced by a onetime, single stage, single rate tax on all goods and services paid by every individual in the nation.
Some degree of a consumption/use tax?? I agree 140%. I knew we were on the same page!
I was attempting to relay my disgust with the tax code by increasing its absurdity. Sarcasm is very difficult if not impossible via text.
Some degree of a consumption/use tax??
A pure retail sales tax charged at the retail register, a full consumption tax. No corporate taxes, no VATs, no wage taxes; No exceptions or exempted items ,pay once on an item at time of first purchase for consuption use and never again on that item.
John Linder (R Texas) offers a comprehensive bill to kill all income and payroll taxes outright, and precisely that kind of tax system replacement.
H.R.2525
SPONSOR: Rep Linder, John (introduced 07/17/2001)
A bill to promote freedom, fairness, and economic opportunity by repealing the income tax and other taxes, abolishing the Internal Revenue Service, and enacting a national retail sales tax to be administered primarily by the States.
Refer: http://www.fairtax.org & http://www.salestax.org
You employ the same argument that libs do in pushing for more and more welfare state spending at someone else's expense.
It's all about whose ox is getting gored, and as long as it isn't yours, I guess you feel justified in your position.
The concept of taxing people on the basis of whether they can "afford it" is just plain immoral. The "services" that are appropriately funded include police, fire, courts, prisons and a military to defend the borders. Those benefits are enjoyed equally by all citizens. A fixed and equal value levy should be applied to all who enjoy these benefits. The rest of the money confiscated by the politicians is an immoral exercise in wealth redistribution designed to buy votes for socialist politicians. The people at the bottom of the economic scale have the ability to vote for politicians who will steal from those at the top of the scale. The number on people on the bottom of the scale is growing. Again, when you rob Peter to pay Paul, you have Paul's vote.
As high paying jobs are exported to India and the stock market continues to falter, the number of people available to rape for excessive taxes is falling. California is learning that lesson right now. When the burden on the top grows too heavy, it will be time for a more current societal performance of "Atlas Shrugged".
A pure consumption tax would still be paid disproportionately by the "rich", but they could limit exposure by controlling consumption.
And how do you figure that, with a single rate for everyone with no exeception and no exemptions of any product? The richer folks among us have proportionately more of their revenues available for investment and job creation investing in greater proportion than the the average or lower income folks. As a consequence the control on consumption is a given. Production and investment is not taxed in a retail sales tax system so I do not see how one could support the concept of tax being paid "disproportiately" by the rich, as they pay a lesser proportion of their total revenue stream in a consumption tax system than the proportion revenue subject to retail taxes of the average or lower quintiles.
The retail tax approach does lay an expensive burden on every shop keeper, but most already have to collect state sales tax.
The tax is collected from the customer, the shop keeper is compensated for collecting and remitting the tax by the tax administration authority under the proposed legislation of H.R.2525 . The actual compliance overhead is much lower for a retail sales tax, that it is for an income tax and VATs which demand very heavy planning, accounting, and legal costs in comparison to simple retail sales taxes.
Tax evasion (under the table cash transactions) are exceptionally common and would undermine the retail tax.
Tax evasion under the income tax only requires one person, doing business on a cash basis and not reporting income.
Tax evasion under a the retail sales tax requires the collusion of both a shop keeper and his customer. The shop keeper is held liable for the remittance of the sales tax regardless of whether he collects such or not from a customer, with whom he had better have solid basis for trust.
Under a tax once type of tax there is sufficient room for those who do not wish to be involved in tax collections for government to conduct law business enterprises and earning a substantive livelyhood without resorting to the artifices and liabilities of tax evasion. Example enterprises include inter-business sales are not taxed, sale of used or antique goods and property are not taxed(such having been previously taxed) etc.
80% of cash retail sales are done by less than 20% of retail businesses. Such businesses, are the larger corporate sellers who would not be inclined to incur the liabilities of unlawful sales. Thus it is clear that the level of tax evasion would be no greater than a probably less than under the current tax system now.
In any case, if tax evasion is so high as to not sustain revenues for government that is more an indication of excessive tax rates depressing the economy than a lack in a sales tax system. One of the features of a consumption based system is that it is more self regulating from the viewpoint of interaction between government and the people, and is a point in its favor rather than one against it.
Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury, said it best in Federalist Papers #21 when he stated:
"Imposts, excises, and, in general, all duties upon articles of consumption, may be compared to a fluid, which will, in time, find its level with the means of paying them. The amount to be contributed by each citizen will in a degree be at his own option, and can be regulated by an attention to his resources. The rich may be extravagant, the poor can be frugal; and private oppression may always be avoided by a judicious selection of objects proper for such impositions. "
and in the same Federalist Paper he also noted:
"It is a signal advantage of taxes on articles of consumption
that they contain in their own nature a security against excess.They prescribe their own limit, which cannot be exceeded without
defeating the end proposed - that is, an extension of the revenue.When applied to this object, the saying is as just as it is witty
that, "in political arithmetic, two and two do not always make four."If duties are too high, they lessen the consumption; the collection
is eluded; and the product to the treasury is not so great as when
they are confined within proper and moderate bounds.This forms a complete barrier against any material oppression of the
citizens by taxes of this class, and is itself a natural limitation of
the power of imposing them.Impositions of this kind usually fall under the denomination of indirect
taxes, and must for a long time constitute the chief part of the revenue
raised in this country." (Emphasis added).
The politicians would have another problem: wildly varying tax collections based on the vagaries of "consumer confidence".
Actual studies of spending patterns in variable economies indicates a more stable flow of revenues than occur with wage and income based taxes.
Frankly, I could care less what a sales tax may or may not do for government, I am more interested in the advantages and increase in freedom and privacy for the individual and as a more appropriate tax for a Constitutional Republic in the visibility of the retail sales tax which encourages accountability of government to the electorate:
- It is fairer to tax people on what they extract from the economy, as roughly measured by their consumption, than to tax them on what they produce for the economy, as roughly measured by their income;
"As a matter of fact, what the income tax does — and this is the debate that I think we always try to get into in order to let you and him fight, see — and the people of this country are led down a path where the actual control of their resources, which in the end is the control over their will, is handed off to the government."
. . .
"The government then manipulates that will in order to destroy the freedom of our electoral system through the income tax structure, and we call the resulting slavery a free system."
"In point of fact, it is not as the founders understood, and the only way to restore real freedom is to give people back control over the income that they earn so that they won‘t, at the voting booth and in other phony issues, be subject to that manipulation."
- KEYES TRANSCRIPT (01/28/02)
To remove or hide taxation from the individual, is to remove the goad which assures accountability of government to the electorate. Federal tax rates are high because a majority of the electorate do not proportionately perceive the burden their demand for largesse imposes on the minority of citizens.
The siren call for representation without taxation is the formula that got us where we are at today. The ability to hide or disguise taxation from the view of large sectors of the electorate allows the Congress to get away with the creation of the evergrowing monster that it fosters.
Liberty and freedom have a price, responsibility. If that price is avoided there are no brakes on the growth of government, the ultimate result is the end of freedom through creeping socialism.
There was good reason why Karl Marx and the Communist Party makes the progressive/graduated income tax the 2nd plank of the Manifesto of the Communist Party, by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, published in 1848. We should never forget nor overlook the philosophical underpinnings of that choice:
"The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state ... . Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property ... . These measures will, of course, be different in different countries. Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable.
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in he hands of the state.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc. "
The Intent of the income tax is for political and social control not revenue collection. The Individual Income tax is maintained to establish and hold every person in the country perpetual legal jeopardy. That is a situation that must end with the repeal of the income tax from the statutes, and the prohibition of its use by Constitutional amendment that future generations will not face the same manner of manipulation and interference in their lives.
. A fixed and equal value levy should be applied to all who enjoy these benefits.
Oh, you advocate a Capitiation tax under Article I Section 9, apportioned by state population,
[Montesquieu wrote in Spirit of the Laws, XIII,c.14:]
"A capitation is more natural to slavery; a duty on merchandise is more natural to liberty, by reason it has not so direct a relation to the person."
--Thomas Jefferson: copied into his Commonplace Book.
The people at the bottom of the economic scale have the ability to vote for politicians who will steal from those at the top of the scale. The number on people on the bottom of the scale is growing.
That is certainly true when there is no economic impact perceived by them. Under a full retail sales tax, everyone is exposed to the costs of largess and are directly impacted whenever the purchase any goods or services whatsoever. This impact is especially felt by the bottom of the economic scale where virtually the entire income of such folks (whether it be from work or welfare) goes to consumption purchases.
In the case of the income tax, where the individual is exempted from payment of taxes for less than generous threshold amounts, what do you expect but total disregard for the cost. For them there is no perceived cost.
Under a consumption tax, where all retail goods and services are taxed the impact of taxation is keenly perceivable by those in the bottom scales of income, fostering a stronger push for lower tax rates.
As high paying jobs are exported to India and the stock market continues to falter *** When the burden on the top grows too heavy, it will be time for a more current societal performance of "Atlas Shrugged".
Rep. Bill Archer, Chairman, House Ways and Means Committee:
Consider, that a retail sales tax cannot be levied on goods being exported. Thus exports become more competitive on the world markets. Under the current system, the income & payroll taxes as well as the costs of compliance associated with them are embedded withing the price of all goods for export. Under a retail sales tax, such embedded costs are removed providing significant benefits to our exports. On the import side, anything imported has sales tax added onto it helping to bring pricing of foriegn goods(containing embedded foreign business taxes and compliance costs) more in line of domestic products.
Atlas' Shrug is not the inevitability that some would like to protray it to be.
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