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Sunday, June 25, 2017

Now That Healthcare is "Fixed" (hah!)


As that fiasco plays out this week, the emphasis has turned to "now that we have health care fixed, let's move on to tax reform".  Paul Ryan went so far as to say,
"Transformational tax reform can be done, and we are moving forward,"
Now, personally, I never met a tax cut I didn't like.  The tax system is horribly broken in this country and broad cuts and reductions across the board sound great.   As Ryan also said,
"We are actually unique in the world in the way we discourage capital from coming back to America and how we incentivize off-shoring jobs," ... "This is not the kind of exceptionalism we should aspire to ..." 
There is a genuine problem in America: most people are getting poorer.  Wages have been in stagnation for nearly 50 years while prices have continued to climb.  The statistics the government reports to tell us how wonderful everything is in the country consistently lie about the cost of living.  Their hedonic adjustments tell you that even though the car you want to buy says $33,000 on the sales papers, it really is the same cost as the $19,000 car you bought in 1997.  The new car is technically superior to the 1997 car, so it's really cheaper.  If all you have is the money to pay for the $19,000 car, well then, the government says "sucks to be you".  Not really.  They don't acknowledge your problem at all.

Idiots like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren look at this rampant screwing of the people by the big government and central bankers and think the answer is to make the government bigger and never, ever mention the role of the trillions of dollars of assets the Federal Reserve created.  

The unfortunate reality is that there is no tax reform on the horizon that will make them richer.   Most people aren't poor because the feds take too much of their money; they're poor because the feds have gummed up and distorted the economy so badly.  Hobbled by regulations, fake money from the putrid, execrable central banks, and the crony deals that enrich the few insiders, the Fed.gov can’t deliver the jobs and incomes people need.

Earlier this year, House Stupid Party members said they were going to strive for a tax return you could do in the space of postcard - then they overcomplicated that by keeping popular deductions.  That's not how you do it.

You want "transformational change"?  Throw out every page of the tax code.  Everyone pays a flat percentage.  I don't like throwing around numbers for what it should be because (1) I don't know, and (2) things will change so much, so fast, that any number you start out with will need to be changed.  I've heard 17%.  I've heard 10%.  So let's pretend 15% is the answer.  Maybe three or four questions on a tax return.  

A simple flat tax will never happen.  It would shutter the entire tax preparation industry - there's about a $12 Billion industry there just for the franchises.  No more H&R Block, no more tax lawyers, or accountants.  Everybody pays the same percentage.  The rich will pay the vast lion's share, like they do now, and the poor will pay a pittance, like they do now.   David Stockman, who of course was Reagan's budget chief, said,
The income tax has been slashed so many times since 1981 that it’s no longer a broad based societal tax; it’s a kind of luxury tax on upper income salary earners and the small share of households which garner most of the capital income from dividends, interest payments and capital gains…
Stockman went on to point out that 60% of tax filers accounted for 5% of tax revenue.  In addition, 35% of tax filers – more than 52 million filers at the bottom and middle of the income ladder – didn’t pay a single dime of taxes after deductions, exemptions and credits.

And that kind of reform just ain't gonna happen.  The "Deep State" loves a complex tax code.  The insiders hide little treats for themselves and their friends in it.  They use it to control the "little people".  The stupid politicians who call themselves "voice for the poor" would scream that the rich aren't paying enough.  Perhaps worst of all, there's no public outcry calling for that kind of reform.

If you want to dream of REAL reform, Make the Dollar Great Again.  Or, at least, Make the Dollar Real Again. Tie the dollar to gold again, fire everyone at the Fed and fire all the dictators central economic planners.  Do we legally need to have a Federal Reserve?  Reduce it to one guy running the "gold window" that Nixon closed in 1971: selling gold coins for dollars.  Or maybe that becomes the Treasury office that sells gold coins now.  


6 comments:

  1. When the progressive politicians and bankers managed to create and legalize the federal reserve system, they were the first to realize that they no longer had to levy any taxes. They could just "print" the money they needed to run the government as they wished which is one reason that the current dollar is worth about 4 cents of the original dollar...and that is exactly what they have been doing by running up the debt. They don't even hide it anymore. When they are selling bonds the federal reserve will buy the bonds if no one else will. China wants to sell its entire bond portfolio...fine the fed will buy it for CASH. Of course what we call cash is actually debt...there are no gold or silver certificate, only federal reserve notes. Notes are debt. So if you wish to actually reform taxes then just do away with them all together and limit the debt to a percentage of GDP. No more IRS, tax preparation, bookkeeping for government or scammers looking to rake the IRS for illegal refunds. Simple, secure and finally have the financial game out in the open. indyjonesouthere

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  2. Wishing for efficient government is like wishing for efficient electric vehicles. Nobody knows how to do either of them. It might be possible in the future with new technology, but that will come about only because of new technology, not because of wishing.

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  3. Predictions are hard, especially about the future, but I'll go out on a limb here: The existing tax code will be nuked, as in "completely erased," and replaced with a much, much simpler program.

    Unfortunately, we'll first have to go through a decade or so of bartering beans, small children and home-grown carrots for firewood or meat, but it will be glorious when we finally get there.

    Unless, of course, we allow the same group of liars, cheats and thieves to have a say about how things will work....

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    1. That group is called "voters", because all taxation is theft. Are you proposing sheep carry protest signs reading "No veal, less wool"? The error is in conceding the legitimacy of a shepherd.

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  4. The stupid party and the socialist party may well reform our tax system but it is highly unlikely that they will make it better. The lure of tax revenues is so great that if they were given the choice between a system that would allow us all to earn more and retain more of what we earn and our health and children's future would be much better for it OR raise the taxes even more but bury it all in a 1000 page bill with a nice sounding name our politicians will choose more revenue. Simple as that.

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  5. The 3x5 postcard tax form is a pipe dream. The problem is not in calculating the tax, which could be on a 4x6 card now, it is in calculating what is income. Just be a single income wage slave and it gets real easy. Don't invest, don't run a small business, don't own a house. A tax on income will never be simple. Somebody will always want to change the definition to make tax revenue go up.

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