http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=531278
Maurice,
Interesting article. I was shocked when I heard the news a while back
that more than 50% of Americans don't pay taxes. That just isn't fair.
While I'm all for making sure the rich don't take advantage of the poor,
I'm also against the poor taking advantage of the rich.
With the EIC, the child tax credit, the additional child tax credit, and
all the other tax credits for various financial decisions (like buying
an alternate fuel vehicle), we have seriously eroded our tax base. I
think we should scrap the whole tax code and just have a flat tax. No
exemptions, no credits. Just a flat tax based on your income/profit. Any
money that comes in qualifies as income, including inheritance. And no
corporation tax. Just tax the individuals when they get distributions
from the corporation (i.e., salary, dividends, etc.)
If we had a flat tax, it would be lower for everyone. I just want to
make sure that both the rich and the poor pay their fair share. Using
the tax law to incent various personal/business behaviors or to help out
people who need a leg up isn't what tax is for. If we need other
safety-net programs to help people rejoin the economy, we should make
those programs tailored to the individual issues in a way that builds
self-sufficiency. But to just send out blanket tax credits is
counter-productive.
Perhaps if all the single parents out there didn't have access to the
EIC, etc., they wouldn't be so lax about being single. They would see
marriage as a financial necessity like it used to be.
---
Tim
Glad you enjoyed it.
I am a Fair Tax man myself. It makes no sense taxing labor productivity.
Who are the poor and how do the rich take advantage of them?
I don't have a negative view of the rich. They drive industry and econ growth. That's an advantage to 'the poor'.
The erosion of our tax base is purposeful redistribution.
Two quotes I like to keep in mind from Alexis De Tocqueville:
"A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury."
This is 'the poor' taking advantage of the rich. Something conservatives in politics are always working against and they're always demonized for it.
"The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money."
Stimulus, 'Free' Healthcare, 'Free' Tuition, subsidized agricultural products and fuel etc. When everything becomes a constitutional right, well then....
Other safety-net programs were custom tailored to specific situations, individuals and families. They were called extended families, neighbors and Churches... Government is tearing at that fabric of society. It's a harsh reality, but what builds more self-sufficiency than the threat of starvation?
Yes, tax credits are counterproductive as is all government directed welfare.
The cultural relativism that children don't need both a mother and a father, and the idea that government provides more effectively and efficiently than the nuclear family for the needs of humanity, is the biggest reason for the size and scope of the federal government.
From Wikipedia:
Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline is a 1996 book by former United States Court of Appeals
judge
Robert H. Bork. Bork's thesis in the book is that American and more generally Western
culture is in a state of decline and that the cause of this decline is modern liberalism and the rise of the New Left. Specifically, he attacks modern liberalism for what he describes as its dual emphases on radical egalitarianism and radical individualism. The title of the book is a play on the last couplet of W. B. Yeats's poem The Second Coming: "And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, / Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?" Bork contends that the "rough beast of decadence … now sends us slouching towards our new home, not Bethlehem but Gomorrah."
Bork first traces the rapid expansion of modern liberalism that occurred during the Sixties, arguing that this legacy of radicalism demonstrates that the precepts of modern liberalism are antithetical to the rest of the American political tradition. He then attacks a variety of social, cultural, and political experiences as evidence of American cultural decline and degeneracy. Among these are affirmative action, increased violence in and sexualization of mass media, the legalization of abortion, pressure to legalize assisted suicide and euthanasia, feminism and the decline of religion. Bork, himself a rejected nominee of President Ronald Reagan to the United States Supreme Court, also criticizes that institution and argues that the judiciary and liberal judicial activism are catalysts for American cultural corruption.
In this light, Bork advocates an amendment to the United States Constitution which would allow Congressional supermajorities to override Supreme Court decisions.
