Before the 16th Amendment, we had the world's 33rd largest army and a whole list of equally astounding and true facts that indicate the difference in scale of government expenses.Jameson3171 wrote:Consumption tax like it was supposed to be. Everything is taxed! The United States was doing just fine before the 16th amendment. And the 16th amendment allows businesses to get taxed not individuals. The founding fathers fought a bloody war for our freedom and independence from the British that were taxing us to death. If everyone had more money in your pockets, they would purchase more commodities. Walmart already issued a press release stating that their products have a mark up just for taxes. In other words they are transferring their income tax on to the consumer.Jeffrey wrote:Out of curiousity, since the goal here is to eliminate the income tax, what exactly is it Tax Protesters want to replace it with?
National 39.6% sales tax? National property tax? An apportioned income tax?
Businesses do not pay taxes, they only include them in costs passed onto consumers. Playing with that fact can be tricky, too. Say, you want to tax the rich and not the working class, so you pass a tax on yachts. Great idea? Not really, the rich decide for a time to buy second homes instead or start collecting rare coins, whatever, we divert our disposable income and if we HAVE to have a big boat, we buy a used one. The net result is the tax doesn't raise much money, the obnoxious rich guy you hate has a new plane instead of a new boat, and thousands of working class guys who used to build boats are out of a job. It really happened.
The "intolerable acts" of 1765, which are the "taxing us to death" part of your rant above were really quite reasonable taxes, not very high and enacted to help the crown pay the expenses of The French and Indian War, fought in America to protect the colonies. Long before the shooting started, all of these taxes had in fact been repealed save the tax on tea (and why Americans drink mostly coffee to this day, alone among the former British dominions) Our forefathers fought the war (and it wasn't very bloody as wars go either...) for the principle of representation in Parliament, less than a third of the colonists at the time actively supported the revolution. Hardly ''taxed to death'', more correctly ''annoyed at the 3 cent a bottle tax on Coke'' but really, to the point of organized and armed rebellion mad at the not being allowed to vote".
If you reduce taxes, you have to reduce spending, so lets put more money into people's pockets!
First item, your own suggestion that we stop sending billions overseas, I assume you mean foreign aid. First I would point out that by GDP the USA is not in the top 10 donor nations, there's a valid argument we should give more. But we're making omelets here and a few eggs are gonna get broke. A third of foreign aid is military so its not included in our military budget (and we'll get to that) but it goes to the same place so we'll discuss it later. The rest amounts to $19 Billion, thirty bucks for every man woman and child in America, but since the "one percent" pay close to 50% of income taxes it actually works out to $1600 for me and you $15 or less. I'd rather them go ahead and spend that money, though. My logic here is its cheaper to give money to Egypt, Jordan, Palestine and Lebanon to not start another middle east war than it is to have one of them close the Suez Canal and cause gasoline to jump to $5 a gallon again. i know its more money for commodities but given the choice between more for gas or more for The Chili Dog non Tax Deductible Retirement Hookers and Blow Fund, well which one are you gonna support? So. seeing as non military aid often helps people, usually creates goodwill towards us that prevents certain sects wanting to fly airliners into our buildings and shooting at each other over what kind of carbs you use to make a felafel, the Foreign Aid is kind of like cheap insurance where we know we're gonna have a claim if we don't pay the premium. Lets just leave that one alone.
The next big thing to go after is Military Spending. Lots to save there. I mean, they have military contractors EVERYWHERE I look. You can't drive across any congressional district without seeing some major or minor military industrial complex kind of place. Where I live. GE builds jet engines for fighter planes. Well, parts of the engines, which are assembled in Connecticut, and then shipped to Washington and Palmdale California and St Louis and Texas to actually go into the planes which are also built in Georgia, Massachusetts and South Carolina. All these planes then get deployed with the accompanying bases in Maine, New York, Missouri, etc....in all I'd say about 435 congressional districts are involved. And you're talking about eliminating jobs in every one of them, so saving the taxpayers a few bucks is gonna put an awful lot of these taxpayers out on the street, always a popular move. You go ahead on that one sparky, I'll sit this one out.
You know its starting to look like your '' If everyone had more money in your pockets'' is just a half thought through idea from one who thinks all our problems are easily solved in the space of a commercial break and involve kicking out the Fed, ending the income tax and impeaching Obama.
Its too bad we can't go back to the world before the 16th Amendment and come up with a plan that would expand our national wealth the the extreme that would allow us 10-15 years longer lifespan, vastly improved health care, a military so mighty as to be virtually unassailable, intelligence services that while they occasionally cross the line still prevent hundreds of incidents that we wil never even know about. A future with a government controlled central bank that is still privately owned, but not subject to the whims of one or two robber barons like JP Morgan that serves to incubate our money supply and return most of the profits back to the Treasury. If we could only create a world where the USA was a major player in business, politics, banking and science, a world where instead of most young men growing up to be farmers or working the land in some way to concentrate that industry into one that could produce more than half the food in the world with less than 1% of the workforce, leaving the other 99% to do more positive growth things like create new industries, build more technology and grow our collective wealth exponentially. The downside is of course,this will create a bigger government, more expensive and everyone is going to have to pitch in, and pitch in more, in some cases almost half of what you make if you make a lot, so that everyone can share the wealth of this more modern world. I don't just want a horseless carriage like the Ford guy out in Dearborn, I want a 440 HP Mustang, in bright red, with power windows, air conditioned, leather seats, a gertag 6 speed transmission and airbags, safety glass speed rated radial tires and satellite radio and navigation. and all for the about the same inflation adjusted dollars as the Model T
So, Mr 1912 freedom lover, would you agree to pay a little, with half paying nothing at all, most paying about 15% and even the stinking rich paying roughly 50% to find Nirvana?
