$7 Trillion National Debt Zeroed Out by Transaction Fee

Company Press Release ^ | 2-20-24 | Chaka Fattah

[Phantom Lord]

I don't know. After all, the bills sponsor is a black democrat. The poor, down trodden, and ileducated are already voting democrat, and Fattah will not be defeated at the polls. With him as the sponsor, and somehow him getting the Rats to support it, those currently getting a better than free ride could be conned into it!

[Jackson Brown]

I thought this was satire...until I went to this guy's House of Reps. web site.

Sounds a lot like a national sales tax to me -- but on EVERY transaction of any kind, anywhere.

[redpoll]

Actually, this sounded interesting. The proposal calls for a fee on large transactions only, which seems to mean that my mortgage transaction would be taxed but not the monthly fee to American express. I also liked the idea of doing away with taxes on incomes, capital gains and so forth, although I'll believe it when I see it. The only caveat is that it sounds too good to be true, and my father told me a long time ago what that means.

[RightWhale]

That's just public debt. Personal, private debt is just as much.

[Carry_Okie]

Oh goody, a virtually invisible tax.
That'll get us out of debt for sure!

[kevkrom]

Sounds a lot like a national sales tax to me -- but on EVERY transaction of any kind, anywhere.

I'm in favor of a national retail sales tax as an income tax replacement, but a transaction tax is just another VAT with the cost of government hiding in multiple layers rather than being exposed to public scrutiny.

[alancarp]

Actually, I might support this, too, if it were over 100 years , if it went directly to retiring the debt, if there was a balanced budget amendment in place, AND it was universal. Then yeah: it's tantamount to a national consumption/sales tax.

But as proposed? No.

[kevkrom]

The transaction tax rears its ugly head again...

[Mudcat]

Sounds a lot like a national sales tax to me -- but on EVERY transaction of any kind, anywhere.

Sounds like a Euro-style VAT to me! Or this weird "excise" tax that we pay in Hawaii... you *think* it's just a 4% state sales tax, until you realize that the soda shop paid 4% when it bought supplies from its distributor, who paid another 4% to their supplier, etc. The average consumer purchase actually pays 13% excise tax, even though they only see 4% on their retail sales slip.

[sirshackleton]

Propose this with a reduction in federal spending, and then you'll have my attention....

[Rodney King]

Uh, 7 TRILLION dollars, divided by a population of 280 million, divided further by 120 months, suggests a "fee" of $208+ every month for every man, woman, and child in America.

208 dollars per month to get rid of all federal taxes? Thats not bad at all. In fact, its great.

[CROSSHIGHWAYMAN]

$208 a month?!?!? Thats it?!?!? I pay way more than that in taxes currently.

This idea blows progressive taxation right out of the water.

This is a big tax increase on the poor.

[Rodney King]

For my family of five, that's $1040 a month - every month.

Not to pry, but do you pay more than that now in Federal Income Tax, Social Security, and Medicare? I would think that most people who work would.

[George W. Bush]

Of course, they would implement this tax and never quite get around to eliminating all the other ones.

Thanks for saving me the typing...

[jigsaw]

About $25,000 for every man, woman and child in the US - whether they're a citizen, a resident alien or illegal alien.

Years ago I proposed we transfer our national debt to all our illegal aliens and then throw them out.   Bingo, the debt is gone and we can start over!

Such a simple solution but I could never sell it. (/a bit o'humor)

[Hank Rearden]

I think we should heavily, punatively, tax people with stupid, silly made-up names.

Like Chaka. Or Fattah.

And congressmen. Let's tax those parasites, too.

[CSM]

Remember, your number is interest free and we would still need to fund the active budgets of an average $2.5 trillion.

2.5x10=25 Trillion

25+7=32 Trillion (still without interest)

32T/280M=114,286

114,286/10=11,429

11,429/12=$952 per month

And you can surely double that to account for the fact that only the "rich" half of the population will be paying.

[MarkT]

Well, clearly not enough facts are presented...but, if at the same time there was a constitutional amendment which prevented any income, FICA, etc. taxes being levied unless Congress declared a war (a supermajority of 66 of 100)on a foreign nation with the dollars raised specifically dedicated to that enumerated purpose...I would even accept a "war on terrorism" if if were limited to the then existing Dept. of Defense budget (in absolute dollars) plus inflation as defined...this might have some merit...need more facts and an impediment to prevent the elected political whores from once again screwing us by spending our money, sometimes referred to as taxes and otherwise as "investment" in x or y or z on their continuous efforts to buy segments of society to re-elect the political whores.

[CSM]

It is projected at $2.2 Trillion for 2004 and it grows every year.

The amount that doesn't pay has grown to almost 50%. The "richest" america (jonny edwards) pays 97% of the revenues required to run our budget.

[muleskinner]

Chaka Fattah passes the liberal kook test with flying colors, but you know what they say about blind pigs and acorns.