COMMON SENSE; Revisited
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Clyde Cleveland END THE FED Speeches
July 23, 2010 at 03:25 pm by Eliyah FinkelsteinPost under:Chicago 2008:
Chicago 2009:
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Tainted Stripes
Book under: May 21, 2010 at 02:20 pm by Wayne KlingerASK FOR A FREE COPY
In this issue:
•Primary wrap-up•START Treaty: Undermining National Security
•The Defects of Obamacare
•The Bloggergeist: "The Tea Party Blame Game", "Stymie-lus", "Land of the Weak, Home of the Cave", "Entitled to White Guilt", "The Primal Primary Screams of PA" and "Powder Kagan"
•Ohio Primary results
•Pork statistics of PA
•Democratic Bill that will allow takeover of businesses
Copies can be obtained by emailing me at "taintedstripes" at yahoo or hotmail with SUBJECT LINE: "June issue" and leaving a concrete mailing address.
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if VAT, Ditch the Income Tax
April 21, 2010 at 07:27 pm by Wayne KlingerArticle under:www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/...come_tax_105213.html
April 18, 2010
If VAT, Ditch the Income Tax
By George Will
WASHINGTON -- When liberals advocate a value-added tax, conservatives should respond: Taxing consumption has merits, so we will consider it -- after the 16th Amendment is repealed.
A VAT will be rationalized as necessary to restore fiscal equilibrium. But without ending the income tax, a VAT would be just a gargantuan instrument for further subjugating Americans to government.
Believing that a crisis is a useful thing to create, the Obama administration -- which understands that, for liberalism, worse is better -- has deliberately aggravated the fiscal shambles that the Great Recession accelerated. During the downturn, federal revenues plunged and spending soared. And, as will happen for two decades, every day 10,000 more baby boomers are joining the ranks of recipients of Medicare and Social Security, two programs with unfunded liabilities of nearly $107 trillion.
In the context of this concatenation of troubles, the administration's highest priority was to put an enormous new health care entitlement on the welfare state's rickety scaffolding. Why? Because the liberals' lunge to maximize government's growth depends on quickly creating a crisis that can be called a threat to the entitlement menu, and to the currency as a store of value. Then the public can be panicked into accepting the addition of a VAT to the existing menu of taxes.
A VAT is collected on value added at stages during the process of production, but most of its burden is borne by consumers. They file no VAT returns, so its stealthiness delights the political class, which can increase it in small, barely noticed increments, with every percentage point yielding another $100 billion.
Although the nation's welfare often varies inversely with that of the political class, a VAT would ameliorate a real problem: Americans consume too much and save too little. Furthermore, today's baroque tax code drives economic distortions and enables corruptions.
Corporations do not pay taxes, they collect them, passing the burden to consumers as a cost of production. And corporate taxation is a feast of rent-seeking -- a cornucopia of credits, exemptions and other subsidies conferred by the political class on favored, and grateful, corporations. Because the income tax is not broadly based, it radiates moral hazard: Its incentives are for perverse behavior. The top 1 percent of earners provide 40 percent of that tax's receipts; the top 5 percent provide 61 percent; the bottom 50 percent provide 3 percent. So the tax makes a substantial majority complacent about government's growth.
Increasingly, the income tax is codified envy. A VAT is the political class' recourse when the resources of the minority that is targeted by the envious are insufficient to finance ravenous government.
Because a VAT would shred Barack Obama's promise not to increase any tax on households with incomes less than $250,000, he must hope the deficit reduction commission he created will provide cover for his apostasy. But 14 of the commission's 18 members must endorse any recommendation. Good luck finding two votes for a VAT among the six Republican members -- Sens. Judd Gregg, Tom Coburn and Michael Crapo, and Reps. Paul Ryan, Dave Camp and Jeb Hensarling.
And wait until the political class' most imperious masters, the elderly, are heard from. When they worked they paid taxes on their incomes; retired, they will resent -- they are virtuosos of resentment -- being taxed when they spend their savings.
Because a VAT potentially taxes everything, it would be riddled with exemptions. This is because it maximizes the political class' opportunities for showing favoritism -- by, for example, exempting certain "green" goods. It also widens that class' scope for the pleasure of being bossy. For example, it could reduce a VAT's regressiveness -- like rain, a VAT falls equally on the rich and the poor, but the poor devote a larger portion of their income to consumption -- by exempting most foods but not those that the nanny state disapproves: "Put down that sugary soda and step away from the vending machine!"
Money is time made tangible -- the time invested in the earning of it. Taxation is the confiscation of the earner's time. Although some taxation is necessary, all taxation diminishes freedom. Adding a VAT without subtracting the income tax would constrict Americans' freedom much more than the health care legislation does. Because the 16th Amendment will not be repealed, adoption of a VAT would proclaim the impossibility of serious spending reductions, and hence would be the obituary for the Founders' vision of limited government.
Copyright 2010, Washington Post Writers Group -
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Some News Flashes
September 20, 2009 at 04:11 am by Darrin MoirPost under:Sure enough, the bailouts created "too Gigantuous to fail" institutions in the financial world, giving them an unfair and monopolistic leg over their competitors. At the same time another 30% of banks failed recently without any intervention. Consumer choice is depleting and we are truly getting a rigid oligopoly financial system. Do you think Federal reserve members didn't see this coming? Do you think that maybe they would want to see their buddies wielding the upper hand.It is striking proof that free market economics do not cause monopolies. Favoritism and government intervention make these things happen. The government's only job is making sure that what it has now effectively created, doesn't happen. That said and done, the media is finally using buzzwords that Fiscal conservatives used to argue against the bailouts. It creates moral hazard... now they tell us.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/27/AR2009082704193_2.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2009082800437
Scientists want the government to tax all sweet products in a coercive approach to making us eat healthier. Congress wants to pass a health bill that requires by law to purchase a service from a private company. (Ps. car insurance is not the same as health insurance. Driving on the road with a vehicle is specific activity that is a possible danger to other individuals. Health insrance requires you to cover yourself from any risks for simply existing.) The only way that this becomes okay in a society is the power paradigm shifts from bottom up to top down and the citizens become assets of the state rather than the power holders.http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Financial-Industry/Fructose-in-the-firing-line
On Saturday, September 12th, over 450,000 people marched on Washington, and no major news media covered it, except conservative talk radio and conservative bloggers. Otherwise it was media blocked.
States are already feeling the strings attached to those stimulus dollars. In Education, there are a few states that won't allow their teachers to be evaluated or fired based on test scores, especially federally mandated test scores. Yet, the Obama has effectively attached a clause to billions of dollars in stimulus money for the "race to the top" program of his that requires them to step down their defensive stance of protecting their teachers from federal mandates requiring evaluations of this type. Without bowing down federal laws that require teachers to be evaluated based on standardized test results, these states become ineligible for funds. Naturally, they are scrambling to back down on their word, give up their state sovereignty, and hand more power over to the federal government in the name of a few dollars. Oh, but it's for the children, right? Yeah the same children who are going to be paying this stimulus spending for years to come.
http://www.teachermagazine.org/tm/articles/2009/09/09/298498usschoolsjudgingteachers_ap.html?tkn=MXVF2zT%252FS%252F2IUWWaHYv8zzxKLgbyrhFxYgfg -
Another Way to Look at the Nation's Economy
September 16, 2009 at 05:09 pm by Kent LalleyPost under:Here's an article I wrote that my local newspaper printed. It's about half way down under "Another Way...":
http://online.dailyamerican.com/pdf/09/07/16/07-16-09/a040716091.pdf
I try to do "something" for Liberty everyday even if it's just reading a page or two of a website like this one. If more people would just take a moment to get a better understanding of what liberty really means more would be able to "see through" the fallacies thrown at us daily. That's just my take on what would bring our country back to the foundations of liberty it was started on. I hope you might be inspired to try something on your own too. The ideas of liberty and free market economics are worthy of the effort in my opinion.May I suggest sending a FaceBook friend invite to Lawrence W. Reed, president of the Foundation for Economic Education (www.fee.org.) He's under the name "Lawrence Reed." I'll predict you'll not regret it!Kent Lalley -
Why You Can't Save
September 15, 2009 at 05:52 pm by Richard WalbaumArticle under:Explains the simple mechanics of our theft-based monetary system, why usury creates universal poverty.
(2 pages)
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Rich Country - Poor Country
September 15, 2009 at 05:48 pm by Richard WalbaumArticle under:Our monetary system promotes universal struggle, poverty, and creates unpayable compounding astronomical debt that causes rising prices. By confusing the nature of money, predators have taken control of our monetary system, dominating society and deforming humanity in the process. Learn the principles of monetary system design, so that when the opportunity comes for change you will recognize it either as the answer and promote it, or as a falsehood.
Money is a creature of law; usury is the problem, gold is not the solution.
(27 pages)
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Alex Jones
September 15, 2009 at 05:29 pm by Gary BinkleyOrganization under:Alex Jones movies are world renowned for factual content on such subjects as 9/11, swine flue, the corporate take over of the economy, the FED and the New World Order. This site is a must for those who need good documented resources for the peaceful battle to take our Republic back.
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The Creature from Jekyll Island
Book under: September 02, 2009 at 04:07 pm by COMMON SENSE; RevisitedA comprehensive history of the creation of the Federal Reserve and its impact on society.
