Tax Reform in America?

Mike Huckabee backed the Fair Tax. Herman Cain backed 9-9-9. Tax reform has taken a back seat to other issues with Obama and Romney – although Romney has called for lower rates funded by fewer deductions.

The tax code has tens of thousands of pages because our government is corrupt, and the tax code is the weapon of choice. Votes can be bought and lucrative favors and post-government employment obtained with the “loopholes” in the tax code. The problem with getting rid of loopholes is the loophole which purchased your vote is precious to you. You may own your home because you want a deduction for the mortgage interest that you pay. It doesn't matter to you that renters must subsidize you and the real estate industry. Is that “fair”? Those generous folks who give to charities get a deduction. It doesn't matter that donors to non-profits who hate America get the same deduction.

If the Politburo – those with governmental power – simply removes some loopholes, then we have a flatter tax. We still have an Internal Revenue Service – expanded to tax those who refuse to accept PPACA. We still have a huge tax code. We still tax income.

Except for a few, we try to minimize the amount of tax that we pay. To do that we must minimize our taxable income. Do we really want to do that?

Instead of taxing income why not tax consumption? Then you decide where and when to pay taxes. The Fair Tax ensures that those “poor” and elderly who have incomes below the poverty line will pay NO tax. Those currently outside the tax system – drug dealers, prostitutes, black marketeers, etc – will pay a tax every time they purchase new things. The “rich” will still pay more than anyone else assuming that they continue to spend. Consumption taxes encourage frugality, so that $100,000 car or that $1 million third home on the beach or in the mountains doesn't look as good with a sales tax added. I seriously doubt that Warren [Buffet] and Bill [Gates] will radically change their lifestyle!

Taxes are too high. The income tax and fiat money have allowed the federal government to expand. It is almost impossible to cut spending – even at the edge of the fiscal cliff. Radical surgery will be required to fix the problems, but Romney is correct: the takers will not vote for it. The sheeple – those who believe what politicians say – think that the status quo can be permanent! Ignorance is bliss!

Stephen Hayes on Libya & President Obama

"For nine days, the Obama administration made a case that virtually everyone understood was untrue: that the killing of our ambassador and three other Americans in Benghazi, Libya, was a random, spontaneous act of individuals upset about an online video — an unpredictable attack on a well-protected compound that had nothing do to with the eleventh anniversary of 9/11.

"These claims were wrong [as the Ambassador's daily log shows]. Every one of them. But the White House pushed them hard....

"Four Americans were killed in a premeditated terrorist attack on the eleventh anniversary of 9/11, and for more than a week the Obama administration misled the country about what happened."

QE is an Illegal Tax

The federal government raises revenue three ways:

1) Direct taxation

2) Borrowing (selling Treasury Notes)- a deferred tax

3) Printing Federal Reserve Notes - a hidden tax.

If the Federal Reserve prints more notes than necessary, it devalues the currency. This is a tax on all who hold the currency. It is a regressive tax because it hurts the poor and the elderly on fixed incomes the most. By law all taxation legislation must begin in the House of Representatives. What the Fed is doing is illegal!

With a gold standard, it is difficult to devalue the currency. To print more "money" you must have more gold to back it. This is why Progressives created the central bank - and the income tax on the "rich" - and removed the gold standard.

Jimmy P: 9 Reasons We are Worse Off

aei-ideas.org/2012/09/does-this-look-like-an-economy-thats-moving-forward-9-reasons-why-it-really-doesnt/

QE and the Government Debt Bubble

The Fedspeak term is “quantitative easing” or “QE”, but it is simply printing more money than necessary and using it to buy Treasury debt. This has kept interest rates artificially low – for the present.

Wall Street likes QE because stock prices rise with more dollars chasing the same number of stocks. Even though no value has been added, the “sheeple” think that stocks must have more value since the prices have gone up. Sheep are not very intelligent. Sheeple are people who believe the brokers who mislead them. Wall Street makes money by charging fees and by stock manipulation. When the stock price has risen substantially, they sell short.

Realizing that the currency is being devalued, financial experts are buying assets. Gold and silver are favorites. Silver has gone up about 23% in the last 2 months. This should not be annualized since the rate will rise exponentially instead of linearly once sheeple lose faith in the currency. Until then, the ads for buying gold or silver will increase in number. The experts have already bought theirs. They will sell to the sheeple now that the price has gone up.

During the inflation of the housing bubble – helped by artificially low interest rates from the Fed, sheeple went deeply in debt to buy the biggest house possible since “housing prices never decrease, so houses are the best investment.” When they needed money for stuff, they got a line of credit on the home's equity. When the bubble burst, they could not afford the mortgage payments and taxes. Consumer spending decreased because the lines of credit – a personal ATM machine – disappeared. Since 2/3s of GDP is consumer spending, businesses cut back purchases and jobs. Those now unemployed could not afford their debt. A vicious cycle became more vicious.

The Fed's QEs continue to inflate the government debt bubble. Experts have downgraded United States debt and included a negative warning. The longer that the bubble inflates, the bigger will be the “pop” when it bursts. Since the government borrows 40% of what it spends, it will have 2 main options: cut spending by 40% or continue to devalue the currency. In the early 1990s Mexico made the “old peso” invalid and exchanged 1 “new peso” for 1,000 old pesos. What will happen to elderly Americans who saved a lifetime to have $1,000,000 for retirement when it becomes only $1,000 for retirement in an economy with substantially higher prices?

Heritage on the Number of Jobs Created

Under President Obama, the U.S. economy has created a net 415,000 private-sector jobs—less than 0.2 percent of the 155 million-member American workforce. But even that statistic does not tell the full story, since the workforce itself has shrunk dramatically in size since Obama took office. Labor force participation is at 63.5 percent, its lowest level since 1981. In other words, a large chunk of Americans have simply given up looking for work. A significant number are collecting disability insurance instead.

Note: This is after 99 weeks on unemployment. Why work?

It Was Worse Than We Thought!

The economy has not fully recovered because the Democrats misjudged how bad things were when they took office. Bill Clinton said, "No president—not me or any of my predecessors—no one could have fully repaired all the damage in just four years." The Democrats held the Presidency, the Senate and the House of Representatives in January 2009. Republicans only took back the House in January 2011. The Democrats passed a stimulus bill in 2009 of $800 Billion promising a recovery which would keep unemployment less than 8%. In the spring of 2010, they passed one of the largest entitlement programs in history with PPACA (Obamacare). In 2010 they passed Dodd-Frank (named for the two most responsible for the bad legislation which caused the problem). The size of government and its regulations increased dramatically. Businesses are still reluctant to hire.

From the day Obama took office (January 20, 2009) to today, the national debt rose from $10.627 trillion to $16.016 trillion—an increase of $5.389 trillion. Unemployment has remained above 8% for Obama's term. If spending more than you take in causes the economy to recover, then where is the recovery? Only 96,000 jobs were created in August, but 368,000 gave up looking for work. The “unemployment rate” went down to 8.1% because fewer people are working. Is this progress? If massive wealth transfer is the goal, then I guess that it is progress!

The Federal Reserve has been printing an excess of money in order to buy Treasury Notes. This has temporarily kept interest rates low and allowed the government to operate on borrowed money. Printing more money than necessary causes inflation. We saw the first signs this summer as gold, silver and other commodities started to rise rapidly in price. Silver has risen about 23% since July. Americans are myopic. They will say that gas prices are rising; food prices are rising; rent prices are rising;car prices are rising;etc. It can't be that the dollar that we are using to pay for these things has been intentionally devalued by our government! It must be greedy oil companies, greedy food stores, greedy landlords, greedy corporations, etc. Maybe the financial experts know something about the money supply!

Environmentalists Costing Taxpayers

A constant stream of lawsuits filed by environmental groups ostensibly to protect endangered species have cost taxpayers $15 million in lawyer fees from nearly 600 court actions in the last four years.

“It’s become a cottage industry,” said Rob Gordon, senior advisor for strategic outreach with the Heritage Foundation. “Those trying to compel the government to add some critter to the federal endangered list are often the green equivalent of slip and fall lawyers. It can be a lucrative business.”

Voter Registration a Travesty of Justice

According to research conducted by the Center for the States of the non-partisan Pew Charitable Trusts (Pew) inaccurate voter registrations are rampant. Pew's independent research published in February 2012 indicates that approximately 24 million active voter registrations throughout the United States -- or one out of every eight registrations -- are either no longer valid or are significantly inaccurate.

The Secretaries of State in each state and the United States Attorney General Eric Holder are making voter fraud easy!