Americans need a tax revolt
It occurs to me more and more often recently that the problem with taxation is not going to be fixed without a revolt. I was reminded of this with a news report about how voters in Massachusetts (Txachusetts?) are voting to eliminate their state income tax, and how all the politicians are bemoaning it as it would be horrible for the state. But I don't think so...
See, politicians in America always spend more money than they have. We have no sense of fiscal discipline, and we've run deficits at every level for so long that restraining spending is not really even a consideration any more. Look at the recent and upcoming stimulus and insider payoff packages: we've spent over a trillion dollars we don't have, when we're already $10 trillion in debt, and the only complaint was that the bills didn't have enough pork for everyone.
Eventually, this usually leads to higher taxes. For example, I predict that by the end of Obama's term(s), we will have substantially higher taxes, all his empty rhetoric promises aside. It's a somewhat inevitable consequence of socialist policies (and, I should point out, not uniformly undesirable among those advocating socialist wealth re-distribution like Obama). This is a good thing if you're an insider sucking off the teet of the ruling socialist party, and sucks if you're an average person trying to make a living and being sucked dry by said party.
What we need, as a country, is a hard limit to the amount of taxes any person is required to pay. I would make it in terms of percentage of income, since that's the form of taxes currently, although if we had a more sensible taxation system based on consumption it could certainly be a hard limit on consumption tax percentage. I think the current amount necessary to fund the federal government is around 22%, but I could be off by a bit.
Would this stop the government from running up deficits and spending more than they take in? Certainly not. However, it would likely prevent the periodic expansions of socialism in the country from draining the life-blood of the American dream from the people in the process, and give people a sense of stability with respect to the financial parasite which is our government. Moreover, when the government eventually runs out of money entirely and collapses from the weight of generations of financial malfeasance, at least the citizens will not have suffered unduly in the interim, and possibly as a result the country's economy might still be strong when the next government emerges.
That's my opinion anyway.
See, politicians in America always spend more money than they have. We have no sense of fiscal discipline, and we've run deficits at every level for so long that restraining spending is not really even a consideration any more. Look at the recent and upcoming stimulus and insider payoff packages: we've spent over a trillion dollars we don't have, when we're already $10 trillion in debt, and the only complaint was that the bills didn't have enough pork for everyone.
Eventually, this usually leads to higher taxes. For example, I predict that by the end of Obama's term(s), we will have substantially higher taxes, all his empty rhetoric promises aside. It's a somewhat inevitable consequence of socialist policies (and, I should point out, not uniformly undesirable among those advocating socialist wealth re-distribution like Obama). This is a good thing if you're an insider sucking off the teet of the ruling socialist party, and sucks if you're an average person trying to make a living and being sucked dry by said party.
What we need, as a country, is a hard limit to the amount of taxes any person is required to pay. I would make it in terms of percentage of income, since that's the form of taxes currently, although if we had a more sensible taxation system based on consumption it could certainly be a hard limit on consumption tax percentage. I think the current amount necessary to fund the federal government is around 22%, but I could be off by a bit.
Would this stop the government from running up deficits and spending more than they take in? Certainly not. However, it would likely prevent the periodic expansions of socialism in the country from draining the life-blood of the American dream from the people in the process, and give people a sense of stability with respect to the financial parasite which is our government. Moreover, when the government eventually runs out of money entirely and collapses from the weight of generations of financial malfeasance, at least the citizens will not have suffered unduly in the interim, and possibly as a result the country's economy might still be strong when the next government emerges.
That's my opinion anyway.
[Higher taxes are] a somewhat inevitable consequence of socialist policies (and, I should point out, not uniformly undesirable among those advocating socialist wealth re-distribution like Obama).
ReplyDeleteEven a believer in “socialist” wealth re-distribution understands the need to rein in spending. I support gov’t spreading the wealth around in a limited way to help citizens at or near the Federal poverty line. I know we can’t have a middle-class tax cut, a healthcare subsidy, care of the poor, and maintain our enormous military. It will be hard to do even two of those four things at the same time. I wonder which will go.
I have hopes that Obama will scale back on the tax cut idea and call on citizens to accept some sacrifices to help the neediest people and to get our economy running on sustainable energy sources. It’s probably more likely, unfortunately, that we’ll end up with higher taxes (as a percentage of GDP) and more money spent on middle-class handholding, with only minimal benefit to the poor.
What's funny (in a laughing at the retard banging his head into the wall sort of way) is that most of the monetary policy changes end up having the opposite effect in the end. For example, taxing the rich causes the people with means to exert more effort to shield their wealth from the leachers in the US, causing the net tax income for the country to decrease. Similarly, taking more money from businesses causes less businesses to be around, causing more unemployment, increasing the need for more government subsidies. Most of these types of policies end up being backwards anyway.
ReplyDeleteI think we'll end up with higher taxes and higher taxation of rich people and any businesses (at least, that's the way these policies have always ended up in the past). Remember, the highest 5% already pay a huge percentage of the taxes which run the country (over 60%, see here). There's a point of diminishing returns in abusing the people who create the prosperity that the rest of the country enjoys, and the US is very quickly approaching the breaking point.
For example, taxing the rich causes the people with means to exert more effort to shield their wealth from the leachers in the US, causing the net tax income for the country to decrease.
ReplyDeleteIf you're talking about reasonable changes in tax rates, the evidence doesn't back up your claim. If you look at a chart of GDP over time, you do not see wild fluctuations every time Congress changes taxes.
Just thinking about individual experiences shows this. Will you scale back a business or work less if the marginal rate goes from 35% back to 39.6%, which is where it was in the mid 90s? When you go to sell a property or rebalance your portfolio, how much weight to give to whether LT cap gains in 15% or 25%? Taxes just don't have that much much impact.