Flat, Fair, and Forever

[mr mahs]

Flat, Fair, and Forever Post #

I like to hear everyones especially the Lefts opinions on this subject of flat and consumption tax. Interesting read.

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http://www.nationalreview.com/nrof_...00401270850.asp

Flat, Fair, and Forever

The time is right to repair the tax system.

By Ed Feulner

Every profession has its unofficial list of things you don't say, and politics is no exception. A leading entry: Never call for a tax hike.

At least, not by name. Instead, do what the Democratic presidential candidates do: Cloak your hike in the reassuring moniker "tax reform."

All the Democratic contenders want to repeal at least some of the tax cuts enacted since President Bush took office. Howard Dean, Dennis Kucinich, and Al Sharpton (plus Richard Gephardt, before he dropped out in the wake of the Iowa caucuses) want to repeal all of the Bush tax cuts.

In other words, the reform they favor is a tax increase. Even if they were candid enough to admit it, though, their policy is misguided. There are two things we should do this year: Make the previous tax cuts permanent and begin replacing the entire tax code with a simple and fair flat tax.

The concrete results of the Bush tax cuts are all around us. Economic growth for the third quarter of last year was 8.2 percent. The stock market is soaring again. Business investment is at a 10-year high. Yet there's a big problem with many of the cuts: They're set to expire in a few years.

Consider the estate tax, or the death tax, as it's often called. It's being phased out year-by-year and will finally expire in 2010 — only to return at pre-2001 levels the next year. If you think family farmers and mom-and-pop business owners have a tough time passing their businesses on to the next generation now, look ahead a few years. Should they plan to die in 2010, or set up the elaborate tax schemes required to preserve their property for their family?

Of course, all this confusion can be settled with the stroke of a pen. If Congress will agree to make the previous tax cuts permanent, everyone could begin to plan and make sensible decisions about the future. After all, lawmakers were smart enough to realize that slashing taxes would energize the economy. Certainly they're smart enough to realize that a huge tax hike in 2010 would be a devastating mistake.

But we need to do more than just lock in the earlier cuts. We should fix the tax code to bring down taxes even further and to enact a flat tax.

Our current tax code is 17,000 pages long and includes more than 1,100 forms and publications. It's so confusing that taxpayers are forced to spend almost $200 billion each year just to comply with it. Even IRS employees don't understand the laws they're supposed to enforce. Several years ago, a General Accounting Office survey found that IRS employees gave incorrect tax advice half the time.

We could save time, money, and trouble with a flat tax. We could file our returns on a form the size of a postcard. And we would bring down marginal tax rates without causing revenues to fall because loopholes would be eliminated. (A faster-growing economy also would generate more tax revenue.)

That's important, because, as my Heritage Foundation colleague Daniel Mitchell wrote recently, "History tells us that tax revenues grow and wealthy taxpayers pay more tax when marginal tax rates are slashed. This means lower-income citizens bear a lower share of the tax burden — a consequence that should lead class-warfare politicians to support lower tax rates."

Simply put, a flat tax would be fairer.

Unfortunately, it's probably not yet politically possible to enact a completely flat tax. Politicians have spent years attempting to use the tax code to engineer social policy, crafting deductions and credits for behavior they approve of. It'll take some time to undo that damage. And after all, the presidential candidates in one of our political parties are actually pressing for higher, not lower, taxes.

Still, this year we should start taking steps toward a flat and fair tax system. When voters see how well it works, they're sure to demand we make it permanent.

[pattbateman]

i like a flat tax

national sales tax too

[DiscoProJoe]

As a true classical (i.e., pre-20th-century) liberal who isn't as hypocritical as most modern-day liberals are, I'd like to express my opinion about taxes by posting a short essay I wrote in May 2002. Enjoy!

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Taxation Thwarts Boycotts

Imagine if the Montgomery, Alabama city buses had been 100 percent tax-funded and charged no fares in the 1950s. Picture the idea of all Americans being required to work part-time for a particular plantation and to purchase its harvest -- whether they wished to or not. And envision the scene of a massive arrest of peaceful, silent protesters who refused to submit themselves to this tyranny.

In these scenarios, how much longer would it have taken until the buses were desegregated? What kind of horrible benefits would the plantation offer its employees, and what inadequate products would it generate?

Today, these parodies exist in the form of government taxation. Many Americans have come to believe that taxes result in major windfalls for the poor and middle classes that otherwise would never be seen. But nonetheless, much poverty still remains, inner-city schools continue to under-educate, healthcare stays inaccessible to many, and roads and highways are cluttered with dangerous intersections, potholes, and traffic jams.

More importantly, however, one of the most tremendous problems with taxation is overlooked: taxes seriously hinder the power of the poor and middle classes to *boycott* activities they disagree with or don't think is a good deal. Examples may range from Social Security and public education to the Oklahoma City MAPS Project and the U.S. government's wars on drugs and terrorism.

Each week, Americans are required to work a few days for the federal, state, and local regimes, and must "purchase" such items as farming subsidies, corporate welfare, the Boston Big Dig, and the Internal Revenue Service. Anyone caught boycotting the system, for whatever reason, will be heavily fined and/or imprisoned -- even if the defiance is peaceful and nonfraudulent.

Is it any wonder that such a system continues to deliver inferior goods and services at high costs?

In spite of all this tyranny, however, a viable alternative does exist. It is called individual liberty, free markets, private property, and limited government.

Each person would enjoy the freedom to keep every dollar he earns to save, spend, and donate at his own will, and no one would be forced to fund something he feels is not worth the price. Schools, retirement investment firms, charities, and emergency services would deliver good quality at reasonable costs, or could go out of business. Pharmaceutical companies and healthcare providers would be free from the enforcement of excessive, expensive medical regulations, and could give low-cost care as they could decades ago. Roads and highways could be paid for by electronic monitoring or subscription stickers to display on vehicles, and private competitors might purchase land and construct new roads to satisfy more customers -- reducing traffic jams and encouraging better, safer streets.

Even the armed forces could be funded without taxes. For instance, a city or state that donates the most money *per capita* to a particular military branch would receive the best protection against terrorists and invaders from that branch. Again, people could boycott or not associate with any activity they disagree with.

Some readers may argue, "Taxes are the price you pay for liberty," but according to that claim, the Soviet Union must have been the freest nation in the world.

Other readers may be thinking, "You've chosen to reside here, and you're free to leave this city, state, and country if you don't like it, so shut up or go live somewhere else!"

Of course, these folks probably would have made similar comments to Susan B. Anthony, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Nelson Mandela, but let's picture the following two scenarios:

a) I belong to a certain organization, and refuse to pay rent, dues, or other charges. So its members rightfully *kick me out*, and possibly would take me to court if I owed them money (which I earlier had agreed to pay as part of a contract).

I refuse to pay city, state, or federal taxes. As a result, the officials *throw me in jail* for committing a victimless crime -- even though I never explicitly agreed to pay the taxes in the first place.

This is the difference between freedom of association with private organizations and government coercion. The former is peaceful and voluntary, while the latter is not. Private groups can be rejected without a penalty, while political first-strike force can't. We must never overlook the power of boycotts as a peaceful stimulant for individual liberty and positive social change.

But if you're still not convinced, and if you believe Americans have *too much* individual freedom or not enough taxes, social programs, or public ownership, I have the perfect political idea for you: a totalitarian direct democracy.

Everyone would collectively own everything (i.e., what's mine is yours and what's yours is mine), and no politicians would exist (in theory, of course). Every few days, all citizens would be required to vote on certain issues they feel are important to them -- thus determining how the society would be run. Inalienable individual rights to life, liberty, and property, along with the power to boycott, would be unheard of. The only "right" the government could protect would be the will of society to plot its course through a simple majority vote.

Obviously, I have no idea how these "free" people would determine which issues make it onto the twice-per-week ballots, but let's put that aside for now. Sound good?

[pattbateman]

so what is your opinion this is just a variety of opinions where do you stand??

i cannot quite make it out