Then you can buy used stuff. It really isn't that difficult to comprehend, plus you don't get double taxed on every component that is created to make a product. Do you really think people should be taxed on money they save, inheirit or earn, rather than what they spend? Plus it makes everything a hell of a lot easier to budget, and there is no longer a regressive tax. BTW, this isn't a partisan thing. Most people in Gov't don't like it because it creates a lot less power for Gov'ts. to manipulate the tax system to benefit others.
Businesses get double, triple, quadruple taxed, which is inevitably passed onto the consumer - so they do actually. I'm in favor of a tax on consumption - I just don't think a national retail tax is the way to do it.
Considering that we haven't adopted a flat tax but a progressive income tax that argument is far from weak and ridiculous but is the reality of our tax system.
Agree there are no perfect solutions. The biggest problem IMO with our current system is how complicated it is and by exploiting enough loopholes much of the fairness of progressive taxation is lost. A flat tax would be good if it reduced loopholes and was also much easier to file but I suspect a flat tax would quickly become complicated as politicians start carving out things tax rebates and other things to appease interest groups until they realize they have to raise taxes in other areas to make up for lost revenue and you end up back to a mess. The "fair tax" sounds like a national sales tax with a twist of prebates. While this has the benefit of taxing consumption instead of income the biggest problem I see with it is enforcement. It seems to me an invitation to expand an underground economy as if you don't have to report income it would be an easier matter to engage in cash sales or even barter and without a sales record there is no check on where your income is coming from.
Which is why only new items are taxable. Kinda hard to barter unless you want to pretend the inventory "disappeared."
Well, like I said, what was in the article mainly, about how he takes his faith seriously and doesn't separate it from his actions. He's also the most consistent pro-life candidate, supports covenant marriage, I like his views on the importance of arts education. Most importantly, he seems like an honest and consistent person, not a slick politician like Romney, changing his views to fit whatever is popular currently. I think we need to continue that policy in the White House. Do what's right, whether it's leading in the polls or not that day.
The tax system we have today is absolutely ridiculous because it allows the rich elites to tax their employees into submission while claiming to be taxing themselves. If you make a 100 grand a year you aren't rich--you are a professional who works for a rich person--yet the government would just love to tax you like you were the guy who owns the business instead of just working for it. Rich people in America are those who own millions upon millions of dollars in assets (like companies and property) even though this isn't counted as taxable income. Whatever taxable salary they may take in from their job is inconsequential because it represents a very small portion of their actual wealth. Meanwhile the professional who doesn't make quite enough or doesn't know how to buy those assets gets a third of his entire yearly income seized by the government because the government has decided that he meets the definition of "rich" because of his income, not his net worth. Its the truly wealthy people who write these laws this way and then has the gall to tell the poor guy that the guy making 100 grand is the greedy b*stard when he wants his taxes reduced.
So you are a proponent of the Infinite Tax? Didn't they already pay taxes on the income that made those acquisitions possible? But they should just keep paying taxes on their after-tax assets? If those acquisitions generate income, aren't they liable for paying those taxes? What do you have against somebody getting ahead in life?
No, moral means right or wrong. It doesn't matter whether the determination is scientific, spiritual, cultural, political, bias, ethnic, tradition, or consensus of opinion. Most people are acceptable to traffic laws because there is a consensus of opinion that they are right. There were many people who felt a 55 mph speed limit was wrong and acted accordingly. It is still a matter of moral expression. There is moral beliefs in every area of human behavior- for instance for scientific reasons people are pushing environmental laws because they believe it is right to protect environmental systems and wrong to damage them. Just because something is determined to be right or wrong for a spiritual or a cultural reason does not make it less moral. To say that there are no need for moral laws for certain individual rights without understanding that a responsibility to moral law is the basis of individual rights demonstrates a lack of understanding. Everything is choice tied to right and wrong. It is only difficult when people cannot agree on the moral basis of their behavior that individual rights are in conflict with laws. Rights that are not given to the governments belong to the individual.
Thanks for the reply. In my case, I'm secular and want religion kept a home and the place of worship of one's choice, not governing what our Prsident does, since we have many different religious beliefs in this country, and many agnostic voters (with a smaller number of atheists). Most importantly, I want nothing more than the opposite of the current policies in the White House, but it's an honest difference. Impeach Bush.
My point is when people start demagoguing the "rich" and claiming they need to pay their fair share of taxes they aren't actually hitting their target and they know it. Why is it the most wealthy part of the country--the northeast--is the most liberal and seemingly hell-bent on giving their money away to the government? What do all these people understand that the rest of America does not? They understand that for the most part their lives aren't going to be affected. They own the hedge funds, their children all have trust funds, and they sure as hell don't want a bunch of hicks from middle America competing with their kids for acceptance into Harvard or wherever. Calling a middle class person "rich" and then taxing them to death in the interest of "fairness" to the poor (in order to prevent most of them from actually becoming rich themselves) is anything but fair. That's one of the main reasons why America's wealth is so concentrated in the hands of the upper elite. America's tax systems has to be overhauled because the effects of the current system are just ridiculously r****ded.
That still doesn't prevent an underground economy but also leaves a big loophole regarding the resale market if only new items are taxed. For instance a car dealer could enter into an agreement to sell cars to a resaler at a ridiculously low price and thus low tax and then the reseller sells the cars at the list price but without the tax since the car is used and split the profit with the original seller. At the sametime enforcement remains difficult as it would now require IRS agents to count businesses inventories and compare that with register receipts to make sure that taxes are being paid. Finally given how big of a role service industries play in our economy how are those taxed or do we just accept the loss of revenue from those? A national sales tax definately has some benefits over our current system but it also has some big drawbacks.
While you are correct there we do differentiate between where morals originate. You could say that there is a consensus morality in regards to issues of physical safety, so that we accept that we striping is needed to separate traffic, but there is no consensus morality regarding issues that originate primarily from spiritual concerns. That may be so but then that goes to why people feel that laws shouldn't be made on a religious based morals.
Well any chance of voting for Huckleberry hound just went out the window. ----------------- Huck: We Need To Amend The Constitution, Bring It In Line With God At a Michigan campaign event last night, Mike Huckabee gave an interesting reason for why he wants to amend the Constitution to ban both abortion and gay marriage: Otherwise, the Constitution would be in conflict with God. Huckabee first observed that some of his opponents don't want to amend the Constitution on both of these topics. "But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God," Huckabee said. "And that's what we need to do, is to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards." http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/01/15/579265.aspx
We should have national religion, like England used to, anyone who doesn't belong to the church are outcasts and should be sent to some remote place like America. Oh that already happened before, they should be send to the moon, ya that's the ticket.
Hey! At least he's honest (it's one of the reasons I was taking a look at him). I may not agree with some of his policies but this just cut the cord.
Gotta say one thing about Huck...It takes balls to say a thing like that while running for president.
