Posted on 09/21/2002 11:39:06 AM PDT by TLBSHOW
I wish I knew the answer to our problems, but I don't. What I do know is that it doesn't seem to matter who we put into office. So why not just vote conscience?
The Founders preferred tariffs, not excise taxes.
"The excise law is an infernal one. The first error was to admit it by the Constitution; the second, to act on that admission; the third and last will be, to make it the instrument of dismembering the Union, and setting us all afloat to choose what part of it we will adhere to."
--Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1794. ME 9:295
However, this needs to be phased out. Nothing in the Constitution empowers the government to be in the insurance business and they fail miserably when they try anyway. If we want to have retirement insurance, let the private sector market it.
In the meantime, we'll need to find ways to fund the current unfunded SS liability. I'd start by cutting all unconstitutional and superfluous government programs (in other words, most of them).
Next, I've seen suggestions that we sell off government assets to raise cash. This might be a good idea, I don't know. Possibly worth looking into. Don't flood the market, but sell off as we can.
Also, perhaps sell long-term government bonds and use the proceeds to fund the current "entitlement?" Yes, this creates public debt (actually just shifts the debt because we already have the liability), but it's better than the current ponzi scheme. At least it's not forced. And, it can be controlled and phased out over thirty years or so via the long-term selling off of existing government assets (if that is feasible) and or the phased shifting to private insurance companies.
Encourage people to use part of their tax savings to buy the bonds or purchase the insurance or otherwise invest their money. You cannot force people to save for retirement, but you can encourage it, and you can make it attractive. But more than that, you have to educate the people and allow them the freedom to fend for themselves.
Awwwww tooo bad, huh? :)
The Democrats are the party of slime, corruption, socialism, high taxes, high spending, weakened national security, Godlessness, homosexualism, perversion, feminism, wholesale liberal propagandizing, international sovereignty robbing treaties, power grabs, land grabs, gun grabs, socialized medicine, socialized programs from A to Z, and worst of all, the evil of government sanctioned and funded murder in the womb.
The Republican Party is opposed to all of that.
There may be individual Republicans who are weak or wrong on the issues, but they are individuals. That is not the Party. There are very few Democrats who are right. The Democrat Party is itself corrupt and evil. It attracts evil and corrupt politicians. Socialism is their goal.
Vote the RATs out.
Keep preaching Jim (HOLLER it even)...because it would appear there are MANY who accuse you and I and others who understand this necessity... of being NOT true Conservatives. In fact, that seems to be the pejorative of choice these days. Their last jab is usually, YOU are NOT a true conservative if...yada yada yada. Or the alternative, "YOU do NOT believe in the Constitution."
They weren't Free Traders? Gasp!
Article I. Section. 8. The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/755130/posts?page=82#82
Sweeten the deal. Give 'em Riordan too.
True. The Federal Monarchist Alexander Hamilton managed to ram through a 25% excise tax on whiskey in 1791. This collection of this unpopular tax was largely ignored in throughout the American "back-country": that is, the frontier areas of Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, and the entire state of Kentucky. Only in Western Pennsylvania did there exist a cdre of wealthy officials who were willing to collect the taxes. This led to what is known as the "Whiskey Rebellion" of 1794.
Thomas Jefferson resigned his post of Secretary of State in 1793, in part, in protest because George Washington was agreeing too much with Hamilton and the Federalists. On May 30th, 1794, seventy-five distillers were summoned to Philadelphia on charges of tax evasion. What made the pill more bitter for them to swallow was the suspicion that some of the men had been selected for punishment more for their Jeffersonian views and criticism of Hamilton than for tax evasion. By August 7, 1794, George Washington, with Hamilton by his side, led an army of some 12,950 men into western Pennsylvania and easily "put down" the revolt.
Using an army of nearly 13,000 men, twenty "rebels" were arrested on trumped up charges of treason.
Of the twenty rebels arrested, none were found guilty.
By November 17, 1794 Hamilton wrotes to Washington from western Pennsylvania that "the list of prisoners has been very considerably increased, probably to the amount of 150. . . . Subsequent intelligence shews that there is no regular assemblage of the fugitives . . . only small vagrant parties . . . affording no point of Attack. Every thing is urging for the return of the troops." And on November 19, 1794 Hamilton notified Washington that the army "is generally in motion homeward," leaving behind a regiment to maintain order.
The Whiskey Rebellion was actually widespread and successful, for it eventually forced the federal government to repeal the excise tax. Opposition to the federal excise tax program was one of the causes of the emerging Democrat-Republican Party, and of the Jeffersonian "Revolution" of 1800. Indeed, one of the accomplishments of the first Jefferson term as president was to repeal the entire Federalist excise tax program
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