Free Republic

Let's take a look at the "Fair Tax" and see how fair it really is. Yes, it would tax health care and health insurance. Why would people think United Health Care, Aetna, other very profitable companies would not only not pay income taxes or payroll taxes, but would also be somehow exempt from the fair tax as well? Almost everything would be taxed, or else they wouldn't collect the money the federal government supposedly need. The Fair Tax Act would impose a 30 percent national sales taxBeginning in 2025, H.R. 25 would impose $30 in tax on each $100 purchase.**...

In my over 30 years of working with volunteers who advocate replacing the income/payroll tax system with a national retail sales tax, one thing that I have noticed is that our volunteers have always been driven by the desire to help our great nation and future generations. None of these advocates are looking to make money or obtain other types of gain for themselves. In fact, most of us have paid our own expenses associated with the effort with no expectation of being reimbursed. Advocates for the national sales tax come from every religion, every line of work, every economic...

The FAIRtax- The lady doth protest too much, methinks! Today’s Chairman’s Report is written by Jade Walle. Jade is a partner of a CPA firm and is on the board of Americans For Fair Taxation. [AFFT] The FAIRtax is once again in the mainstream news given the insistence from certain lawmakers that the FAIRtax Act of 2023, H.R. 25, get a vote on the House floor. This of course will be a red-letter day for the FAIRtax because since its first introduction in 1999, it has never received a House floor vote. Until now, it has languished and died in...

FairTax gonna put a tax like 25% at the checkout stand ..... Say What? Yeah, 25% sales tax ..... uh-huh ..... yep. Maybe 28%, yep. I know what you're thinking: "OH HELL NO. GTFO!" I was posting intensely ten plus years ago about the FairTax. Went to Houston, visited Leo Linbeck Jr. who has since passed on. I studied the history of taxation. The initial GTFO! reactions did not deter, did not phase me. Why? Because 51 years elapsed between a flawed unconstitutional income tax passed in 1862 (quickly repealed) and the 1913 16th Amendment. ..... 51 fricken years. So...

For several years I have advocated a Shallow Exponent Flat Tax. Instead of 4 or 5 tiers, there would be only ONE tier that we all face. But the more money you make, your burden goes up slightly higher than as a flat percentage. The tax would look something like: Tax = 10% X {[Income]^1.05} The exponent could be set by congress every 10 years or during wartime. The flat exponent perhaps should be on a longer timeframe for revisiting, because 10% is very easy to do in your head. As you go up higher in income, your tax burden...

Many Americans are campaigning for a raise in the minimum wage. Even more Americans are struggling just to find jobs at any wage.Yup -- those two news items are related.While trying to present a case for the Massachusetts state legislature to approve a program that provides summer jobs to teens at non-profits and government agencies, an editorial at the Boston Globe accidentally explained why artificially imposed minimum wages kill job opportunities.I don’t think the Globe even realized it, either: The program provides money for YouthWorks, which pays the wages of 4,400 low-income teens in eligible cities who work for nonprofits...

Republican candidate Donald Trump focused this weekend on his economic platform: Cut taxes and regulations across the board while also saving Social Security, Medicare, and other government safety-net programs. Trump’s platform is nearly invincible in the general election if he stresses it enough, polling shows. Trump’s plan will also have a transformational effect on how people view his party. But he still needs to make the accounting work to ensure that his Third Way platform is feasible.

For the next 12 months, a man from Sarasota, Florida will receive $1,250 a month for doing absolutely nothing, and the people footing the bill couldn't be happier about it. The recipient, a man named Edwin who declined to speak to the press, won the $15,000 in a raffle held in San Francisco on May 31. The giveaway was organized by the nonprofit advocacy group My Basic Income, which wants to set up a slew of lotteries to see how basic income might work around the world.

It's been a while since I've written about the idea of a universal basic income. So I figure an update is in order. The typical UBI proposal you see picks a certain dollar amount and then declares that it should go equally to all adults. I disagree with this in two ways. First, I think that children should also receive a basic income (paid to their parents). Second, I think that UBI payments should vary based on age. Neither of these additions negates the chief administrative advantages of the UBI because they don't introduce means-testing. It's trivially easy to vary...

Scott Santens has been thinking a lot about fish lately. Specifically, he’s been reflecting on the aphorism, “If you give a man a fish, he eats for a day. If you teach a man to fish, he eats for life.” What Santens wants to know is this: “If you build a robot to fish, do all men starve, or do all men eat?” Santens is 37 years old, and he’s a leader in the basic income movement—a worldwide network of thousands of advocates (26,000 on Reddit alone) who believe that governments should provide every citizen with a monthly stipend big...

The federal government can easily afford a job guarantee program, becoming our employer of last resort.Involuntary unemployment is barbaric. In the wealthiest country in history, almost 30 million people wish they had full-time work. But, as always, there aren’t enough jobs. And because economic security requires decent work, it’s unsurprising that 50 million people are poverty-stricken and 16 million children are hungry. This is a disgrace and an economic error: the US government can easily afford a Job guarantee (JG) program, becoming our employer of last resort. A right to a job may sound outlandish, but it’s common sense. You...

With government intervention now becoming the only viable solution being touted for everything from individual health care and the economy to our personal safety and how we educate our children, it would only make sense that officials in Washington also figure out a way to use their power of confiscation and redistribution to equalize the income playing field. It’s no secret that 48 million Americans require nutritional assistance just to put food on the table, or that over 100 million of us are living in or at the very edge of poverty, or that nearly one in three of us...

WHITEHORSE, YK—Try to imagine a town where the government paid each of the residents a living income, regardless of who they were and what they did, and a Soviet hamlet in the early 1980s may come to mind. But this experiment happened much closer to home. For a four-year period in the '70s, the poorest families in Dauphin, Manitoba, were granted a guaranteed minimum income by the federal and provincial governments. Thirty-five years later all that remains of the experiment are 2,000 boxes of documents that have gathered dust in the Canadian archives building in Winnipeg. Until now little has...

So what's wrong with Democrats in this country? Why are they being so reactionary? Why do they insist on holding out on so many of their constituents? How long will it take them to achieve their stated goals with such a penny ante approach to redistribution of wealth? If heath insurance is, as they insist, a universal right, isn't food? Isn't shelter? Isn't clothing? Why are there no proposals being made to ensure all Americans can get free food, free housing and free clothing among other essentials? If you get a chance – at a town hall meeting or at...

I was watching MSNBC a few nights ago, or maybe it was CNN, and one of the program’s featured shots was a live picture from Bourbon Street in New Orleans. It was packed and the people were sassy and partying – normal, in other words. Indeed, the commentator used that, very word and stressed the importance of it. He said it again – New Orleans is returning to normal. How depressing it was to hear that because of all things we want for that city, we should not ever again want it to be its old normal self. Normal –...

There have been some unfortunate and dark days in American history, but what was the worst day? Some obvious choices include December 7, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, and September 11, when the terrorists launched their despicable attack. Another option (somewhat tongue in cheek) might be January 20 since Republican partisans would say that’s the day that both Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama became President while Democratic partisans would say that’s the day Ronald Reagan became President. But allow me to suggest that Yesterday, October 3, should be a candidate for America’s worst day. Why? Because on this day...

In 2012, voters in California approved a measure to raise taxes on millionaires, bringing their top state income tax rate to 13.3 percent, the highest in the nation. Conservative economists predicted calamity, or at least a big slowdown in growth. Also that year, the governor of Kansas signed a series of changes to the state's tax code, including reducing income and sales tax rates. Conservative economists predicted a boom. Neither of those predictions came true. Not right away -- California grew just fine in the year the tax hikes took effect -- and especially not in the medium term, as...

At the end of this past week, The Washington Post ran a long story on the Center for Freedom and Prosperity (CFP), an organization that I have long supported. It appeared that the original goal was to do a hit piece on CFP because it had been a leader in the fight for global tax competition and smaller government. The irony was that the authors of the story quoted a number of people from around the world... ...who support bigger government and higher taxes, to the effect that those at the CFP had been highly successful in blocking a number...

John Tamny, of Forbes and RealClearMarkets, has penned a highly original and stimulating look at the economics of money and banking: Who Needs the Fed? I sang the praises of his remarkable Popular Economics when that came out, and now this just-published book has me singing them again, in a new key. Let me note up front that there are substantial parts of this book with which I, so far at least, disagree. I have exchanged some emails with Mr. Tamny on these issues and nothing has been resolved. This is a not A Bad Thing: it can be actually...

When it comes to taxes, depending on whichever conservative you talk to they all have a different idea on what sort of tax plan would work best. Some want a national sales Tax, some want an income tax, and some even want a Tariff. So why not UNIFY under a plan that ALL of us can get behind? Here is an idea that I have been thinking about that i have never seen before. I call it the "10% Flex" Tax plan. Why is it flexible? It is flexible as it would allow congress to control what TYPE of taxes...