Straw Tax Men vs. the FairTax Plan

Your sarcastic hyperbole is duly noted, Cassandra.

Cutting taxes (like next year's delightful move to cut the Social Security payroll tax from 6.2 percent to 4.2 percent) is only half the picture. The other half is, of course, cutting spending. A government that doesn't spend as much is a government that doesn't need to tax as much.

In any responsible and sane conception of government, taxes must be collected to pay for certain services. The question that divides the country is which services are legitimate purposes of government. Maintaining an armed force for national defense is a legitimate purpose, as is providing social safety nets for the downtrodden and the hapless. Subsidizing corporations and markets in the private sector (like farms, auto factories, and banks) is not a legitimate purpose of government. There are hundreds of other illegitimate, unjust, and harmful acts in which the government is continually engaged--but statists and Left-wingers practically never discuss those acts in any serious way.

Maybe one day, this country will do away with all taxes on income and earnings, and instead tax consumption in a well-managed, sensible way. I'm a new proponent of the FairTax (www.FairTax.org). Let's hope that HR 25 and S 296 are passed, and that a new era of prosperity, legitimacy, fairness, and responsible spending is ushered in.

Musings

My stress levels hit the roof this past weekend when I did our yearly taxes. While our returns are rather simple compared to many, they're ridiculous enough to make me very angry. For example, in figuring how much of our Social Security is taxable, I must do a full-page worksheet that is perhaps the most disgusting form yet for the IRS. You take one half of one line, add it to another line, then multiply that by .85 percent, then take the smaller of that line or the other one and add to a line at the top of the page, etc. For your own amusement, check it out on the irs.gov web site. Further, I think all income tax rules and regulations have been written for some particular person or entity. There can be no other reason for such nonsense. A flat 10 percent tax for every person and corporation would solve this and perhaps many of our financial problems. And it would greatly reduce one government department. By the way, do any of us think that either political party will ever reduce government? Federal employees vote too, you know.

Americans constantly decry human rights violations in China. There are, of course, such problems there. At the same time, a recent story shows that the Chinese actually might think more about endangered animal species than American environmentalists do. A man in China shot and ate the last Indochinese tiger in a certain part of the country, if not the entire country. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison and those who helped him cut up and eat the animal were sentenced to 3 or 4 years. Do you think that would have happened here? Never. He and they would have been put on probation at the most with no real punishment for eliminating one of nature's beautiful animals. Yes, I'm an animal lover, but I'm also a person who believes in delivering proper punishment to those who break laws meant to protect citizens. Eliminating one species of animal breaks the delicate chain that will ultimately affect everyone left on the planet.

I'm enjoying the Winter Olympics. True, I liked the every-four-years event better when I thought the participants were mostly amateurs, not the millionaires who compete these days. Still, I was on the edge of my seat at the end of the 30 km cross country, men's figure skating, and men's speed skating. No interest at all in the hockey, halfpipe, skeleton, or super G. And please tell me why anyone with a DVR or even an old VCR would sit through the Olympics with all the ads and not record the shows to watch the next day? In fact, I can't imagine why anyone would watch any ads with the equipment available to cut them out.

Recently, a story in our local paper featured a woman who said she had to hit up area food closets to supplement the $640 per month she received in food stamps to feed herself and three small children. If that woman knew how to cook, she wouldn't need the food closets. The food stamp amount is more than enough to feed her family. It's my guess that she buys prepared foods, cold cereals (wonder if her kids have ever eaten oatmeal), boxed entrees, expensive meats, and so forth. She could cook beans and rice and make everything from burritos to huevos rancheros. She could slow-cook inexpensive meats in a crockpot with fresh vegetables and serve it all over whole-wheat noodles or brown rice for several meals. She could make pots of soups and stews. Cooking is a lost art and it's such a shame, not only because people don't eat as well as they once did but because financially it can be a disaster. We all pay for the laziness of others.

Centralization in Los Angeles: A Taxing Lunacy

Los Angeles is raising its taxes -- again. This time, it's to "pay for" various infrastructure projects (scheduled for completion in 30 years) and to "create jobs." Create jobs? Liberals -- whom I will henceforth refer to by their correct name, statists -- will nickel and dime us all into soup lines, while forcing their collectivist philosophy onto us by creating more and more government agencies until the entire civilization closely approximates the experience of an afternoon at the DMV.

I say let all of us keep most of our money. Let the private sector create jobs. Let it create innovation. Let it create newer, safer, and more efficient technologies. And most of all, let it pay for its activities out of its own profits.

Want to see something scary? Follow this link:
http://www.usa.gov/Agencies/Federal/All_Agencies/index.shtml

I don't need an Agricultural Marketing Service -- who does?!

Look at what we're all paying for, decade after decade. There are hundreds of these nincompoop, do-nothing government bureaus. Statists want more and more of them. I look at this list and I scream inwardly, over and over. It's a nightmare that never ends, an eternal anxiety attack.

Office of Government Ethics?! http://www.usoge.gov

When the statists call their immoral and coercive actions "ethics," it is even more sophisticated satire than anything you can read in Swift, Pope, or Voltaire.