Everybody is talking taxes. Okay, not everybody. But some of the major Republican candidates are.
Herman Cain has a plan … two actually … to remake the tax code. One is his 999 plan. If you keep reading about 999, though, you’ll see that the long-term plan is to convert to what some call the Fair Tax. 999 involves income, corporate, and sales tax. The Fair Tax is simply a national sales tax.
Now, Rick Perry has come out with his own plan: a 20% flat tax rate for everybody. It’s an income tax, not a sales tax.
Waste of time. And here’s why.
Changing the tax code won’t do any good if the government keeps spending. They want to talk income, when the problem is outgo.
“Captain Smith, the lookout has spotted an ice berg dead ahead!”
“Very good, Mister Murdoch. Have the deck chairs rearranged immediately!”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
If we don’t cut spending, then 999 will become 20-20-20, then 30-30-30, then 50-50-50, and so on. Or, Perry’s flat tax won’t be 20%. It’ll be 40%. Then 60% And so on.
We’ve got to cut spending. But that’s hard. We can’t handle hard. Never have been able to.
Oh. Well, maybe we were able to do hard things. Maybe we still are. If we only decided to.
But if the whiney tittie babies that are occupying Wall Street, or sitting in the cabinet, or sitting in the Oval Office were around earlier in our nation’s history, things would be different. And not good different.
“Go to the moon? Imperialist! I’ll make a movie about it. Now give me a sandwich. Extra mayo.” — An nameless Hollywood filmmaker.
“You’ve brought us into this war under false pretenses. Germany didn’t attack us. Japan did! And that’s because of our support for Jews! We need to bring our troops home now!” — An unnamed Texas Congressman.
“That’s just like an evil Republican president. Next he’ll be using troops to seize property from people. What? He suspended habias corpus? Somebody needs to take Lincoln out.” — An unnamed Democrat
“Look at those awful Tea Partiers! It’s not safe to visit Boston Harbor any more. I tell you, they’re going to get violent one day!” — An unnamed government worker
The whiners and complainers need to shut the hell up. And we need to make some hard choices. It will be difficult, and hurt at times. But, like exercise, that’s when you know it’s working.
But, until we quit rearranging the deck chairs, we’re going to crash head on into that ice berg. Then, folks won’t be talking about pulling the car out of the ditch; they’ll be trying to get the ship off the bottom of the ocean.
Pain is just weakness leaving the body.
The trick is not caring that it hurts.
The only conservative in the race is Ron Paul, and the choice has never been more clear.
Cut spending, Basil? Hah!
You mean like spend no more than our tax receipts?
Not gonna happen.
Gramma AND Grampa “earned” that Social Security and Medicare. They are not to be denied.
Don’t worry, inflation will take care of E V E R Y T H I N G.
♫ Print Print Print Print ♫
♫ Print Print Print Print – Print PRINT ♫
♫ CHARGE! ♫
Lawmakers…ears covered with hands LA LA LA LA…we don’t want to listen to you…LA LA LA LA…we can’t hear you!!! You rubes out there in fly over country don’t understand this complicated budget stuff so shut up and let us pros handle it (we give big bail-outs to fat cats who turn around and give us back big campaign contributions)… And we don’t give a sh!t about the country! Got it?
All in favor of appointing Basil dictator for the rest of the year say “aye”! Oh, wait…
9-9-9 is a great plan- who can argue with simplifying the tax code? But when the loop holes come out, lobbyists start loosing jobs. Big chunk of cash out of politics.
Next, the focus would go on earmarks and spending, but now with greater transparency and the full attention of a more engaged electorate (is it 43% that pays nothing today?)
D.C. will processes $3.6 Trillion this year- getting that number back below $2T is going to take more than red lining the budget.
Well in all fairness, that last one about the tea partiers, the original ones did get pretty violent. And once the British seized control of Boston I wouldn’t have wanted to be there.
Basil: You make the perfect argument for not supporting the status quo, aka the lesser of 2 evils, aka whoever the Republican establishment tells us we get to vote for. We need a leader with real principles and a whole heck-of-a-lot of moxie.
The problem is pretending that taxing and spending have anything to do with each other. Fixing the tax code in no way affects what Congress spends.
When Congress begins making a budget for this year that spends the money brought in last year then you can link the two. But I;m not holding my breath.
Economically what you’re saying is totally correct. Politically it’s a sure way to lose elections. The progressives have spent the last century increasing the size of government while hiding the cost from more and more people. Right now more than 40% of the electorate do not pay taxes. Those people are always going to be in favor of increasing government spending, it doesn’t cost them anything. All the progressives need to do is grab another 11% of actual taxpayers and they win.
If our candidate runs on cutting spending, especially ending government agencies, the Democrats will saturate the airwaves telling people how the GOP wants to destroy whatever popular service those agencies provide. It will be a slaughter. I would consider us lucky to get deficits down to 2008 levels by 2014.
The first step must be to increase the number of people paying taxes. The electorate must relearn that things have costs. The second step is to then get a balanced budget amendment, even if that means raising taxes. Once there is a constitutional requirement to balance the budget and a super-majority of the electorate is paying for their government we can make the case for spending less.
The progressives have been working at this for over 100 years. We’re not going to turn it around in one election cycle. We don’t need one principled leader, we need a strategy. Victory is a ratchet.
Tax, smax. I choose to go to the moon. The occupy morons aren’t likely to make it there, and even if they do, “No one can hear you drumming in outer space.”
Please don’t nuke it while I’m up there.
The beauty of 9-9-9 is that the ONLY way to get from 9-9-9 to 10-10-10 is a very public vote requiring a full 2/3rds of congress…and what do you think the chances are of those who vote to increase that tax being re-elected by the voters in their districts? Probably not very good.
You’re right, Basil, but simplifying the tax system to the point of minimizing the IRS, accountants, lawyers, and our other resources pertaining to taxes is a worthy goal. Not nearly as worthy a goal as cutting government spending, but they are not mutually exclusive.
The problem with 999, besides allowing both income and sales tax, is that it eliminates deducting wages, which means that workers are, in a sense, taxed twice at 9%. So, the poor who spend all their income will be paying roughly 9% payroll + 9% income + 9% sales = 27% in taxes.
The Fair Tax gets the IRS out of your personal business. I like that. Anytime a national sales tax goes up the people (voters) will feel it, and hopefully make the congresscritters pay a dear price.
Tittie Babies. Haven’t heard that in a long time.
Fly- 9 sales 9 income 9 business. only pay 18% if you spend all of your money on new stuff. I like everone having skin in the game.