Posted on 04/15/2016 10:56:53 PM PDT by Hanna548
You need to do some more checking.
In preparing my response to your critique of the FairTax, I found this essay: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predicted_effects_of_the_FairTax.
It is, IMHO, a balanced discussion of the FairTax. (Pay no attention to the remarks attributed to Bill Gale (a Brooking Institute “scholar”). He is a through and through Marxist, and his absolute hatred for anything other than steeply progressive income taxes comes through.)
So, here is your homework assignment:
1. Read & digest the Wikipedia article; and
2. Read & digest the information you can find at the FairTax website: https://www.fairtax.org.
3. You might even want to read the legislation. It is short and easy to read and understand, unlike most of the stuff that gets written inside the evil beltway.
Now, please read and study this materiel with an open mind.
And, then, get back to me with your impression.
I’ll close with this: For me the FairTax is about FReedom!
Under FairTax, EVERY American will be FRee to work, earn, save and invest without the the heavy hand of government intrusion that the current income tax allows and encourages.
April 15th will become just another nice spring day!
FReedom is important, and FReeing the American people FRom the slavery of the income tax and the heavy thumb of the IRS is an important issue.
He’d best get a ground game going, if he wants to become the CINC!
Cruz has figured out a way to Hillary his way to the White House by stealing delegates.
The net effect is roughly the same as the Democrats “Superdelegate” scam.
Trump needs to get out ahead of this!
Agree, but it is another spotlight Trump has shined on the totally corrupt system we have going. In reality we have a bunch of unelected big shots choosing our candidates and ultimately our leaders. It is an awful thing to have happened to our Republic and make no mistake, if we do not get control of this, the Republic we were given will be lost.
With all due respect, I don't believe those numbers are realistic. Unless you seriously think the typical person making 100k/yr is only going to spend 27k.
I mean, more power to him if he does - this country needs more personal saving. But I have never known anybody in any income bracket who manages to save anywhere near that rate.
You seem to be hung up on the notion that a more productive guy might possibly pay a lesser percentage of his income for taxes. It kinda sounds like you think he should be punished for being both productive and frugal.
After all, he just paid the same taxes as the other guy. Plus the productive guy is almost certainly going to require less government help. There is zero moral authority to making him pay more. The Father of the Constitution, Madison, saw nothing in it to authorize charity at the central level.
And there is zero charity, in the biblical sense, to stealing money from Peter and distributing it to Paul. In the bible 'charity' generally means 'love' which necessarily requires the giving to be voluntary. The opposite of what gov't does.
Certainly I could be wrong, but I sense that your personal stance is dangerously close to the basis for the whole Dem economic platform - which is the sin of envy.
I'm not trying to convince you to be a Cruz voter or to like his specific tax blend. I'm just trying to argue for the objective fairness of consumption taxes -vs- the evil of income taxes which from the beginning were based on inherently subjective envy and wrong-headed, un-American thinking.
Yes, I said un-American.
The primary value of America was always Freedom, not equality of outcomes. The Constitution is designed to protect Freedom FROM democracy which, in essence, is just mob rule where the whim of the 50% + 1 voters can take everything from you.
The Founders did not give us the blight of envy. They studiously constituted our central gov't to avoid it. And avoid it we did for more than half our history. Then the Devil got his nose under the tent a century ago and the size of government, the level of Paul's dependency on Peter's wallet, and national debt have ALL exploded while we forever now argue about fairness - which can NEVER be agreed upon when it is subjective.
If I'm not making any headway on the point of true fairness -vs- vague and impossible to quench envy, then at least consider what the Founders thought in the straight practical sense. Particularly Hamilton in The Federalist Papers. And Adam Smith before that.
Old Alexander famously made the point that consumption based taxation would be a 'barrier' to unsustainable government growth. For the very logical reason that as the consumption tax rate goes up consumption is discouraged. When consumption is discouraged then less revenue comes in for them to spend.
Or... think of it this way using your own example: say that guy making 30k/yr works his way up to making 40k/yr. With an emphasis on consumption based taxes instead of income stealing taxes, this guy is now in more control of his own financial destiny. He could decide to continue consuming at his prior rate and pay zero addition sales tax allowing him to save his way into financial security much, much easier than with the punishing and productivity-discouraging progressive income taxes.
Income taxes are inherently bad.
Progressive income taxes are immoral and impractical.
Love him or hate him, Cruz has the only plan which starts us back on the road to America's primary value: Freedom!
I don't accept the underlying barely concealed premise, which implies a certain Calvinist vicious austerity, that consumption is a vice that should be punished with punitive taxation.
The "FairTax" advocates haven't thought it through at all, and the more I think about the idea the more I hate it.
What incentive do politicians have to make taxes more painful?
Sure, maybe Ron Paul or his conservative equivalent might want to send a message. Paul used to file all sorts of bills that never made it to the floor for a vote. These regressive sales taxes are even more hopeless than ending the Fed or legalizing pot. Actually, the latter might happen in our lifetimes. It sure has a better chance than a VAT or national sales tax.
First off, sales tax is not ‘regressive’ unless you expect that the owner of the hardware store is going to enquire about your income before you buy a hammer. And then charge you more if you earn less.
Beyond that, I’ll just put your hopeless self on the don’t-call-me-if-it’s-difficult list whenever it’s time right some more wrongs.
Ending slavery, allowing women to vote, etc.
Even the right to carry in many states was considered ‘hopeless’ no long ago. Thankfully here in WI it was accomplished through such hard work.
Governor Walker proved you don’t have to be a billionaire or an Ivy League muckity muck (or even have a degree) to make hard things happen. He has done the downright impossible multiple times: slew the public union Goliath, balanced the budget, won an unprecedented recall fight, embarrassed the slash-n-burn Trump machine at our state level, etc.
You have not done the homework I assigned you!
Please stop with the wild conjecturing and go do your homework!
I don’t remember how to make a graphic smaller: How a VAT works
https://papundits.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/b2503_chart1_750px-ashx.gif
I know enough not to support a 30% national sales tax. That's flat earth stuff. I don't do homework about every lunatic theory Glenn Beck goes off on. Same thing here.
A true sad state of affairs, is it not?
America is much, much better than this awful spectacle unraveling before our very eyes!
Been downhill ever since Jimmah Caaatah!
FairTax is not a “lunatic theory!”
If you’d do your homework, you’d come to understand that!
That you feel the need to conceal the sales tax rate - 30% - shows what a non-starter it is.
These single rate plans offer no advantages to normal people who benefit from progressive taxation.
That's right. I said it. You don't have to be a Bernie Sanders voter to understand that if the tax burden is flatter low and middle income people will have to pay more to produce the same revenues.
There are supply side arguments that extremely high progressive tax rates are counterproductive and lowering the rates can produce higher revenue but that doesn't apply here. It's hard to see how penalizing consumption will stimulate the economy. The plan doesn't work politically or economically.
Here is why the FairTax is needed: “77.5 million households do not pay federal individual income tax”
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/45-of-americans-pay-no-federal-income-tax-2016-02-24
Add that article to your, so far, ignored homework assignment!
MIttens got it right in 2012 when he talked about the “47%” who were takers.
With no skin in the game, these 77.5 million households will continue to vote themselves more “benefits” FRom the public treasury.
FairTax makes every American a stakeholder — we’ll all have skin in the game, and maybe, just maybe, we can get the USA back on the right track.
God knows we are not on it now!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
