Taxes
Ron Paul supports the elimination of the income tax and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). He asserts that Congress had no power to impose a direct income tax and has called for the repeal of the 16th Amendment to the Constitution, which was ratified on February 3, 1913.
An income tax is the most degrading and totalitarian of all possible taxes. Its implementation wrongly suggests that the government owns the lives and labor of the citizens it is supposed to represent. Tellingly, “a heavy progressive or graduated income tax” is Plank #2 of the Communist Manifesto, which was written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and first published in 1848.
To provide funding for the federal government, Ron Paul supports excise taxes, non-protectionist tariffs, massive cuts in spending.
Ron Paul discusses the income tax and the “FAIR Tax” in May 2007:
On November 20, 2008 Ron Paul said in a New York Times / Freakonomics interview:
“I want to abolish the income tax, but I don’t want to replace it with anything. About 45 percent of all federal revenue comes from the personal income tax. That means that about 55 percent — over half of all revenue — comes from other sources, like excise taxes, fees, and corporate taxes.
We could eliminate the income tax, replace it with nothing, and still fund the same level of big government we had in the late 1990s. We don’t need to “replace” the income tax at all. I see a consumption tax as being a little better than the personal income tax, and I would vote for the Fair-Tax if it came up in the House of Representatives, but it is not my goal. We can do better.”
On May 7, 2001, Ron Paul wrote the following column:
The Case Against the Income Tax
Could America exist without an income tax? The idea seems radical, yet in truth America did just fine without a federal income tax for the first 126 years of its history. Prior to 1913, the government operated with revenues raised through tariffs, excise taxes, and property taxes, without ever touching a worker’s paycheck. In the late 1800s, when Congress first attempted to impose an income tax, the notion of taxing a citizen’s hard work was considered radical! Public outcry ensued; more importantly, the Supreme Court ruled the income tax unconstitutional. Only with passage of the 16th Amendment did Congress gain the ability to tax the productive endeavors of its citizens.
Yet don’t we need an income tax to fund the important functions of the federal government? You may be surprised to know that the income tax accounts for only approximately one-third of federal revenue. Only 10 years ago, the federal budget was roughly one-third less than it is today. Surely we could find ways to cut spending back to 1990 levels, especially when the Treasury has single year tax surpluses for the past several years. So perhaps the idea of an America without an income tax is not so radical after all.
The harmful effects of the income tax are obvious. First and foremost, it has enabled government to expand far beyond its proper constitutional limits, regulating virtually every aspect of our lives. It has given government a claim on our lives and work, destroying our privacy in the process. It takes billions of dollars out of the legitimate private economy, with most Americans giving more than a third of everything they make to the federal government. This economic drain destroys jobs and penalizes productive behavior. The ridiculous complexity of the tax laws makes compliance a nightmare for both individuals and businesses. All things considered, our Founders would be dismayed by the income tax mess and the tragic loss of liberty which results.
America without an income tax would be far more prosperous and far more free, but we must be prepared to fight to regain the liberty we have lost incrementally over the past century. I recently introduced “The Liberty Amendment,” legislation which would repeal the 16th Amendment and effectively abolish the income tax. I truly believe that real tax reform, reform that so many frustrated Americans desperately want, requires bold legislation that challenges the Washington mind set. Congress talks about reform, but the current tax debate really involves nothing of substance. Both parties are content to continue tinkering with the edges of the tax code to please various special interests. The Liberty Amendment is an attempt to eliminate the system altogether, forcing Congress to find a simple and fair way to collect limited federal revenues. Most of all, the Liberty Amendment is an initiative aimed at reducing the size and scope of the federal government.
Is it impossible to end the income tax? I don’t believe so. In fact, I believe a serious groundswell movement of disaffected taxpayers is growing in this country. Millions of Americans are fed up with the current tax system, and they will bring pressure on Congress. Some sidestep Congress completely, bringing legal challenges questioning the validity of the tax code and the 16th Amendment itself. Ultimately, the Liberty Amendment could serve as a flashpoint for these millions of voices.
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Dear Dr. Paul,
In last year’s presidential primary in New Jersey, you got my vote. For president, I voted for neither of the two bankrupt party candidates. In 2008, when the GOP gave us John McCain, I decided that was the “straw that broke the camel’s back”, and jumped the sinking Republican ship. I then cast my vote for Chuck Baldwin, the Constitution Party candidate (who you also supported). I surely hope you decide again to make a 2010 presidential run; if you do, you not only would have my vote but my help as well to make that a realty. However, it is clear from 2008’s primary, the Republican Party will not throw their support behind you; rather they’ll again throw you under the bus. You should consider going to The Constitution Party or Independent. Either way, I’m on the Paul Team! Keep up the good work! Joe Parrillo
This is from The American Monetary Institute!
http://www.monetary.org
Background: The Fed is a private organization, not a part of our government.
The Federal Reserve System consists of 12 regional Federal Reserve banks, with boards of directors, under an umbrella
direction of the seven member Federal Reserve Board in Washington, which has the power to determine major aspects
of banking activity, such as setting interest rates, and the reserve and other operational requirements. There are no shares
of the Washington Fed Board organization; the only “ownership” of the Fed is in shares of each of the 12 regional
banks. They are entirely owned by the private member banks within their respective districts, according to a formula
based on member bank size. The ownership is highly restricted in that such ownership is mandatory; the shares can’t be
sold; and they pay a guaranteed 6% annual dividend.
Thus the stories that the Federal Reserve is “owned” by foreign bankers (the Rothschild’s and other prominent banker
names usually come up) are not accurate and these types of rumors have mainly served to discredit wholesome criticism
of the banking system.
It will be clear from the following facts that the Fed is definitely not part of the US Government.
*The Fed is not organized within the Executive, Legislative or Judicial branches of our government.
*Who pays the Fed’s bills and determines its budget? Not any part of our government. The Fed gets its funding from its
own specially privileged operations. The Fed Board determines Fed budgets.
*Who monitors and oversees Fed activities? Again the Fed itself. While some important elements of proper auditing
have taken place, there has not yet been a comprehensive independent audit, by the Government Accountability Office
as proposed in a recent letter from Ralph Nader to new Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, calling for greater monetary
transparency.
*Federal Reserve employees are not part of the US Civil Service System and are not covered by government
employees’ health insurance or pension programs. Who does the hiring and firing? Except for the highly publicized
Chairman and seven member Washington Board, this is in private, unelected hands.
*Federal Reserve Banks are not listed as government organizations by the telephone companies, a small but telling fact.
The ambiguity surrounding the Fed arises because the U.S. President appoints the Fed Chairman to four year terms, and
the seven member board to 14 year terms. Also the Fed is supposed to implement government fiscal policy, but it has not
really done so. (see Is the Federal Reserve System Part of the U.S. Government, at our website
http://www.monetary.org/federalreserveprivate.htm)
Several structural problems arise from private control: The system tends to be run to benefit those in control rather than
the whole society. This concentrates wealth into fewer and fewer hands. The interest received by the banking system for
money creation flows into their hands. The control over where the money goes determines the direction the society
moves in. Privately controlled money tends to go into speculation to make a quick buck. Infrastructure, health and
education get ignored or short changed.
The private banking system, not government, now creates our money in the form of debt.
Most Americans think our money is issued and controlled by our government. They are surprised to learn that most of
our money is created when people and businesses have to borrow from banks, since this is the main way that money now
enters the system. The banks make loans by crediting the borrowers account. This is fiat money, or “purchasing media”
created out of thin air, thanks to a special legal privilege granted to them called “fractional reserve banking.” They write
a computer credit in the account of those whose needs have driven them to the banking system to borrow money.
This concentrates great power and transfers tremendous wealth to the financial sector.
Under this privately controlled monetary system, it’s not surprising that wealth and power have become concentrated to
obscene levels never before seen in our society, where less than 1% of the population is now claiming ownership of
nearly 50% of the nation’s wealth!
This money creation prerogative, often referred to as “THE MONEY POWER,” (President Martin Van Buren always
capitalized it!) has traditionally been associated with national sovereignty. Alienating the power from government into
private hands has inevitably served to concentrate elements of what should remain national sovereign power into those
private hands, where predictably it has been used to promote the interests of the few in control rather than the society as
a whole. That is clearly unacceptable in both a democracy and a republic. It establishes plutocracy – the rule by wealth
Bank of America rejects SEC claims in bonus suit
NEW YORK, Sep. 25, 2009 (Reuters) — Bank of America Corp formally denied U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission claims accusing it of misleading shareholders about bonuses it let Merrill Lynch & Co pay employees before the companies’ January 1merger, and said it is seeking an order dismissing the regulator’s complaint. ..
The bank’s response, in a Friday filing, was expected, and came 11 days after U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff rejected its $33 million settlement with the SEC over the $3.6 billion of bonus awards.
> full story http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/tre58o5r8-us-bankofamerica-sec/
I didn’t get my credit card interest rate decreased to 3.5% like the government workers did……
Your Tax Money…..paying out alot of Government Salaries, and CEO’s Bonus’s. I didn’t think I worked for the government did you….I didn’ get a $5,000 breakfast once a week from a lobbyist. I don’t get a Loan from the Gov. at 3.5 % interest, I don’t get a bail out of my credit cards..the credit card company did but I didn’t. Why is it if I don’t work for the government, but for Corporate America, why is it 40-70% of my income goes to all kinds of Federal Taxes? I don’t get free healthcare like they do either…and an assured 401K. I just don’t understand this system we have allowed to Freely take all of our money…I just thought about this….Does anyone have any answers?
The Department of Energy was created by President Carter in 1977 for the stated purpose of advancing the energy security of the United States. The Department now employs 109,000 people and spends $24 billion of taxpayer funds every year. The accomplishments of those well-funded 109,000 people have been few. We are about to learn in a way that no one will be able to overlook just how few.
Neglect of Infrastructure
The infrastructure for producing petroleum products is rusting away and falling apart.
Not a single oil refinery has been built in the U.S. since 1976. The number of U.S. refineries has dropped to 149, less than half the count in 1981. Because of operating improvements and expansions at the surviving refineries, shrinkage in capacity has been held to only 10%. Meanwhile, however, gasoline consumption has risen 45%.
As new sources of easy-to-refine light oil become harder to find, the world will become more dependent on its abundant sources of difficult-to-handle heavy crude. One-third of Saudi Arabia’s 260-billion-barrel reserves are heavy crude. Worldwide, about 40% of oil resources are heavy or extra-heavy crude, and another 30% are in oil sands and bitumen, which are even more difficult to refine.
The U.S. isn’t ready for heavy crude. Only 30% of U.S. refineries can process it. And the U.S. isn’t doing anything to get ready. It won’t invest in anything that doesn’t look like a sick bank. Refinery capacity is already a bottleneck, and the bottle’s neck is narrowing.
The U.S. is clearly a laggard in refining. Canada, where 95% of reserves are in oil sands, has seen a rush of investment into producing and processing the super-dense resource. Saudi Arabia has promised billions of dollars in the next five years to expand its refining capacity to 6.5 million barrels per day, from the current 3.7 million, which will make them one of the largest refiners in the world. Meanwhile, the U.S. twiddles its thumbs and mumbles NIMBY.
The human element of the energy infrastructure is also in decline. Matt Simmons, the author of Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy, warns that the best-qualified petroleum geologists and engineers are now retiring, with no one to take their place.
http://theburningplatform.com/uploads/image/46579971KeyLicensin
http://theburningplatform.com/uploads/image/46581905TotalWorldO
http://theburningplatform.com/uploads/image/46582614FirstTimeEv
Growing Demand for Oil
The world’s population will continue to grow, and developing countries will continue to grow more prosperous. Both trends will add to the demand for fossil fuels.
China and India are sucking up oil at an ever-increasing rate. China has seen oil consumption grow by 8% per year since 2002; it now exceeds 8 million barrels per day. China’s middle-class population is nearing 300 million people. While U.S. auto sales were plummeting in 2008, China’s auto sales rose 6.7%, to 9.38 million units. Sales in the first five months of 2009 are 14% above a year earlier.
India’s automobile sales are on pace to exceed 10 million in 2009. By 2020, the country’s oil imports are expected to more than triple from 2005 levels, rising to 5 million barrels per day.
It isn’t just China and India that are adding to demand for oil. Others, notably Russian and Brazil, are doing the same. The non-OECD countries now have surpassed the OECD countries in energy usage. This trend will accelerate as the citizens of these countries grow wealthier and buy cars, TVs, and refrigerators.
Get ready for some loud but useless noise. When oil reaches $200 a barrel in the next few years, Congressmen will yell, posture, expound, skewer oil executives on TV, and get red in the face. They will do everything but admit the truth. We will be paying for decades of underinvestment in commodity infrastructure, mal-investment in ethanol, and lack of realism in answering the complaints of Green extremism.
The Department of Energy was created by President Carter in 1977 for the stated purpose of advancing the energy security of the United States. The Department now employs 109,000 people and spends $24 billion of taxpayer funds every year. The accomplishments of those well-funded 109,000 people have been few. We are about to learn in a way that no one will be able to overlook just how few.
Lucky Us
Condoms, contact lenses shielded from tax
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090922/ap_on_go_co/us_health_care_everyday_items
One, two, three, four…
Hrmm!
One, two, (one, two, three, four!)
Let me tell you how it will be;
There’s one for you, nineteen for me.
‘Cause I’m the taxman,
Yeah, I’m the taxman.
Should five per cent appear too small,
Be thankful I don’t take it all.
‘Cause I’m the taxman,
Yeah, I’m the taxman.
(if you drive a car, car;) – I’ll tax the street;
(if you try to sit, sit;) – I’ll tax your seat;
(if you get too cold, cold;) – I’ll tax the heat;
(if you take a walk, walk;) – I’ll tax your feet.
Taxman!
‘Cause I’m the taxman,
Yeah, I’m the taxman.
Don’t ask me what I want it for, (ah-ah, mister Wilson)
If you don’t want to pay some more. (ah-ah, mister heath)
‘Cause I’m the taxman,
Yeah, I’m the taxman.
Now my advice for those who die, (taxman)
Declare the pennies on your eyes. (taxman)
‘Cause I’m the taxman,
Yeah, I’m the taxman.
And you’re working for no one but me.
Taxman!
Thank you, Sheeple
SRV had it right from the start!!
If the house is a rocken!!
Now is the time to push the FAIR Tax!!!!!!!!!!!!
Dear Representative Paul,
I have been an admirer and follower for over 35 years, beginning when I was with the River Oaks Bank and Trust Company in Houston.
Since you are opposed to the income tax, my idea and comment may be something you have already considered. Anyway, here it is:
File suit against the Federal Government for violating the Constitution. The intent of the amendment allowing for income taxes has been significantly abused. With astute constituional legal minds coupled with successful courtroom attorneys, perhaps this is something that could go to the Supreme Court.
In my opinion, the income tax will never be repealed by Congress or through the amendment process. Only by upholding the Supreme Law of the Land will this onerous situation be reversed.
Respectfully submitted by a Tea Party Patriot and 9-12er.
CAN ANYONE GET THIS TO RON AND/OR HIS ORGANIZATION. Just as we all thought the Federal Reserve was a part of the Federal Government years ago, so to do we think the IRS is a part of it. Turns out it’s not so…
1. Is the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) an organization within the U.S. Department of the Treasury?
Answer: No. The IRS is not an organization within the United States Department of the Treasury. The U.S. Department of the Treasury was organized by statutes now codified in Title 31 of the United States Code, abbreviated “31 U.S.C.” The only mention of the IRS anywhere in 31 U.S.C. §§ 301‑310 is an authorization for the President to appoint an Assistant General Counsel in the U.S. Department of the Treasury to be the Chief Counsel for the IRS. See 31 U.S.C. 301(f)(2).
At footnote 23 in the case of Chrysler Corp. v. Brown, 441 U.S. 281 (1979), the U.S. Supreme Court admitted that no organic Act for the IRS could be found, after they searched for such an Act all the way back to the Civil War, which ended in the year 1865 A.D. The Guarantee Clause in the U.S. Constitution guarantees the Rule of Law to all Americans (we are to be governed by Law and not by arbitrary bureaucrats). See Article IV, Section 4. Since there was no organic Act creating it, IRS is not a lawful organization.
2. If not an organization within the U.S. Department of the Treasury, then what exactly is the IRS?
Answer: The IRS appears to be a collection agency working for foreign banks and operating out of Puerto Rico under color of the Federal Alcohol Administration (“FAA”). But the FAA was promptly declared unconstitutional inside the 50 States by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of U.S. v. Constantine, 296 U.S. 287 (1935), because Prohibition had already been repealed.
In 1998, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit identified a second “Secretary of the Treasury” as a man by the name of Manual Díaz-Saldaña. See the definitions of “Secretary” and “Secretary or his delegate” at 27 CFR 26.11 (formerly 27 CFR 250.11), and the published decision in Used Tire International, Inc. v. Manual Díaz-Saldaña, court docket number 97‑2348, September 11, 1998. Both definitions mention Puerto Rico.
When all the evidence is examined objectively, IRS appears to be a money laundry, extortion racket, and conspiracy to engage in a pattern of racketeering activity, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1951 and 1961 et seq. (“RICO”). Think of Puerto RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act); in other words, it is an organized crime syndicate operating under false and fraudulent pretenses. See also the Sherman Act and the Lanham Act.
http://foehammer.net/2008/03/federal-income-tax-is-unconstitutional-irs-is-organized-thuggary.html
Tax his land, Tax his bed, Tax the table At which he’s fed. Tax his tractor, Tax his mule, Teach him taxes Are the rule. Tax his work, Tax his pay, He works for peanuts Anyway! Tax his cow, Tax his goat, Tax his pants, Tax his coat. Tax his ties, Tax his shirt, Tax his work, Tax his dirt. Tax his tobacco, Tax his drink, Tax him if he Tries to think. Tax his cigars, Tax his beers, If he cries Tax his tears. Tax his car, Tax his gas, Find other ways To tax his ass. Tax all he has Then let him know That you won’t be done Till he has no dough. When he screams and hollers; Then tax him some more, Tax him till He’s good and sore. Then tax his coffin, Tax his grave, Tax the sod in Which he’s laid. Put these words Upon his tomb, Taxes drove me to my doom…’ When he’s gone, Do not relax, Its time to apply The inheritance tax. Accounts Receivable Tax Building Permit Tax CDL license Tax Cigarette Tax Corporate Income Tax Dog License Tax Excise Taxes Federal Income Tax Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA) Fishing License Tax Food License Tax Fuel Permit Tax Gasoline Tax (currently 44.75 cents per gallon) Gross Receipts Tax Hunting License Tax Inheritance Tax Inventory Tax IRS Interest Charges IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax) Liquor Tax Luxury Taxes Marriage License Tax Medicare Tax Personal Property Tax Property Tax Real Estate Tax Service Charge T ax Social Security Tax Road Usage Tax Sales Tax Recreational Vehicle Tax School Tax State Income Tax State Unemployment Tax (SUTA) Telephone Federal Excise Tax Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Taxes Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge=2 0Tax Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax Telephone State and Local Tax Telephone Usage Charge Tax Utility Taxes Vehicle License Registration Tax Vehicle Sales Tax Watercraft Registration Tax Well Permit Tax Workers Compensation Tax STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY? Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago, and our nation was the most prosperous in the world. We had absolutely no national debt, had the largest middle class in the world, and Mom stayed home to raise the kids. What in the hell happened? Can you spell ‘politicians?’ ITS TIME TO GET RID OF THESE BASTARDS….CONSTITUTIONAL ONLY !!!! OR EXECUTION !!!!
It seems some people think the income tax is illegal; pretty sure you won’t win with that argument. Instead I think of it as a redundant second property tax.
Uncle Sam places a tax on your property- namely house and vehicle (not sure if anything else is included with that,) now isn’t that house and vehicle your income just in a different form – property? And wouldn’t your income be considered your property, though you haven’t turned it into a house yet?
Quite simply, the income tax is immorally redundant. The government is taxing your income twice and not a whole lot of people seem to really care.
You’ll enjoy these videos. Oh, we care. And we need the end of the FED and the IRS. Progress towards accomplishing this has been too slow.
Adam Kokesh – How to Fight Fascism
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exeXzfsZB7E&feature=related
The Spirit of the Founders
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Nl95T_ND_Q&feature=player_embedded
Greg,
You say in regards to the federal income tax, “Instead I think of it as a redundant second property tax.”
You are wrong.
The federal income tax is an excise tax derived from the activity/privilege of being a federal “employee” or receiving interest, or dividends or the profit from the sale of stock from a wholly owned federal corporation, a corporation where the federal government owns over 50% of the shares of stock, or a federal instrumentality.
The IRC clearly and constitutionally defines who is and who is not liable for the various excise taxes it collects.
Determining your status involves only a hand full of sections of the code.
We private citizens since the early 1940’s have been duped in to thinking that our pay qualifies for the excise tax of federal privilege commonly called “Income tax”
To get the facts go to http://www.howyoubecomeliable.com and/or http://www.losthorizons.com .
Oh, and I can’t wait for the DOJ and IRS stooges to try and dissuade people from verifying the above information on their own or by claiming the information is wrong, misleading and so on. They will mention the(void) Federal District Court case against Peter Hendrickson in reference to losthorizons, but won’t mention the 2 Federal District Court cases brought against Mr. Hendrickson but then withdrawn by the DOJ because Mr. Hendrickson had done nothing illegal.
The truth is, since 2002 thousands of people have filed educated returns to which to IRS returns all property withheld, FICA and Medicare included (they are nothing more than excise taxes on federal privilege).
I read all of these comments from people who are tired of the system just like I am. But the question is, what are we going to do about it? Has everyone on here already wrote to their lawmakers about the unconstitutional taxes? Has everyone already went and changed their W-4 and put down exempt? Has everyone went to http://www.wethepeoplecongress.org/ and signed the petitions for redress of greivances? If you haven’t then you need to.
Remember that the IRC, and IRS tactics, can’t possibly apply to us, average working americans, unless we voluntarily let it apply and give them permission to withhold. To do so, take federal income tax, without us giving them permission would place us in Involuntary Servitude which is illegal according to the 13th amendment. Illegal means illegal and any Judge or lawmaker should understand that if they’re worth the oath that they took in the first place. I’m just surprised that the NAACP hasn’t jumped on to this and brought up the fact that the government is illegally mis-informing and taking money from the hard working african american families and placing them once again into a form of slavery, and how it(Involuntary Servitude) is taking hard earned money away from their lives, families and educations. We need some big organizations to start standing up and get involved so that more of this illegal activity can be made known to the public. This fight isn’t about color because we are all becoming government slaves. Remember that we are all in it together. If it wasn’t for the NRA then we all know that the 2nd amendment would be a thing of the past.
There are 535 lawmakers and 305-310 million people in the U.S.
Now how dumb would we have to be to let 535 lawmakers, which don’t live by the rules that they make or the U.S. Constitution, take our lives from us.
Any and all comments are welcomed. Have a great day…
Remember that God doesn’t want his children as slaves..
Most Americans are under the impression that Pres. O “inherited” a tremendous debt from the former Pres. Bush. With this slight in twisting the actual truth, Pres. O is given a trust that is unearned. He has just been put in place in the midst of a much longer plan and way of life we have assumed. A kind of forgiveness for the wrongs that have been done over time to the American people is implied and a false new hope is the elites way of glossing over what actually has occured in the lives of every American household and abroad.
No one has been held accountable for the crimes against humanity and fraud they have committed.
If all Americans knew that with each new president, it is just a continuation of the same plan being worked out towards the same end, requiring the work, income and cooperation from every American household, Americans would not be so forgiving and trusting of our government and the corruption would end.
Those who operate behind the curtain in secrecy, who actually control our monetary policy and our government are not cited as the source of our woes in this country. Most don’t even know these secret societies even exist, nor how they orchestrate and negatively impact our lives and the world.
If they knew the real reason behind all the continuous wars with other countries, how the elite use military force (our lives to do the unnatural) and monentary maniuplation and theft of the American people (our paychecks, savings, wealth) to execute their global goal, I believe Americans would ban together in one voice and say, we are no longer cooperating. Without our cooperation, they have no way to do what they are and have been doing.
This truth must be made known and be evident to the majority of the population before we will see real change. Thsi is the wake up.
Most Americans are born, get up and go to school, work to fulfill their life goals and dreams – have a family, own a home, college education, start a new business, etc.
But while we are doing that, the government operates in colusion with the elite behind the scenes and with corporations towards another plan that requires mass human cooperation, our money and our lives, if known to all of us, would never even get off the ground. Unbenounced to ourselves, we have been contributing all along to a plan that (1) greatly inhibits us from fulfilling our own personal dreams (2) increases stress and turmoil around the world and our ability to be financially responsible (3) has made us into little more than worker bees for the elite.
Geithner Won’t Rule Out New Taxes for Middle Class
http://blogs.abcnews.com/george/2009/08/geithner-wont-rule-out-new-taxes-for-middle-class.html
If it moves, Tax It !!
The government has used the income tax as a door into every aspect of our personal lives. The IRS needs to have access to information about practically every aspect of our personal lives, to insure that we pay the correct amount of taxes. If we do certain things that the government likes, we pay less taxes. If we do things it doesn’t like, we pay more taxes. There has to be a fair system which doesn’t intrude so deeply into our privacy and liberty. I would accept a national sales tax that exempts basic food items, basic utilities, and rent/mortgage payments of less than $1,000 per month. That way, the truly poor wouldn’t be unfairly punished by a regressive tax. Alternatively, a national property tax would be acceptable. Or both, for that matter. But I would only agree to either IF the agreement included a repeal of the 16th amendment, and a binding resolution that there would never be another income tax imposed on individuals without the approval of 90% of all members of both the House and the Senate, as well as a newly ratified constitutional amendment. The last thing we need is a new source of Federal revenue without a binding agreement that the current one won’t be brought back in a couple of years.
“I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country.” -Thomas Jefferson
Don’t confuse desire for liberty with disdain for law. A true liberatarian knows that individual liberty is only possible when it is coupled with individual responsibility and sometimes responsibility must be defined by the government through law.
State laws concerning safety belts and drunk driving are both proper and necessary. The primary form of government repression in modern society is manipulation of individual liberty through economics. The most effective and destructive tool in this regard is taxation of income.
You continually quote historical figures (Madison, FDR)that argued hard in their time for a stronger central government. Probably not the most effective wisdom on this board.
And let’s get this point very straight. FDR did not save “capatalism” which I prefer to refer to as the free market. One man, even one that decides he has been elected president for life, is not capable of such a thing.
The Great Depression was a result of a collapsed financial bubble that occurred in stocks and real estate. The conventional wisdom on this issue places blame for this bubble on excessively lax monetary policy throughout the decade of the 1920s. With a solid understanding of both macro economics and behavioral finance I personally believe that financial bubbles are mostly a result out of the reality that economies and markets are strongly subject to human nature which in itself is predisposed to excess and will skew toward excess whenever the opportunity (lax monetary policy in this case)enables it.
This financial bubble collapse caused consumers and business to be gripped with fear which caused domestic demand to practically disappear. The federal government under FDR attempted a whole host of Keynesian stimulus plans and financial sector bailouts. Most of these actions served only to further confuse business and further repress demand.
Only after WWII when four years of pent up consumer demand, in the form of a whole generation forced to fight a global war returning home, was rapidly released did the US economy spark into growth mode. FDRs depression era policies had been mostly dismantled by this time, and FDR himself had died.
The government itself exists for the primary purpose of protecting citizens from oppression by all threats foreign and domestic. The US government also has a mandate to preserve individual libery. I would point out that many individuals and organizations would do things that would impede my liberty. For nearly all of them, engaging their services and actions remains a choice to me. Only one, compels me to mail them checks for things I did not ask for and do not want. We all know who that is.
Career Suicide for Waxman-Markey Cap and Trade HR 2454 HR 2998
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBh_AaZ_BjM&feature=related
This process seems to have become the way of the house, senate and executive branch. But our government moves slowly for a reason, so the public, not to mention our congressmen and women, have time to read what is being voted on and to acquire public input ON OUR LAWS.
Add to tax list:
CDC Chief: Soda Tax Could Combat Obesity
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/07/27/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry5192172.shtml
Addition to the never ending tax list:
Face-lifts, tummy tucks and hair transplants could be hit with a new tax to help finance the trillion-dollar healthcare overhaul plan, according to sources familiar with the Senate talks.
The tax, which has not been officially scored, would plug some of the revenue gap senators are seeking to fill to keep on schedule for a markup the week of Aug. 3.
It would target procedures prohibited under Section 213 of the tax code, which deals with itemized deductions for medical expenses not covered by health insurance.
“The royalists of the economic order have conceded that political freedom was the business of the government, but they have maintained that economic slavery was nobody’s business. They granted that the government could protect the citizen in his right to vote, but they denied that the government could do anything to protect the citizen in his right to work and his right to live.
Today we stand committed to the proposition that freedom is no half-and-half affair. If the average citizen is guaranteed equal opportunity in the polling place, he must have equal opportunity in the market place.” -FDR
I agree, in general, that we can eliminate the income tax. We must also addresses all the taxes, fees, and stupid fines at the State and local level. I would also like to see all the tax loopholes and government grants addressed at corporate level as well. The problem is not the corporate tax rate, it is what corporations actually pay in taxes.
A consumption tax would be fair at both the individual and corporate level, but “special interest” coul make this into another mess.
A Tax On Your Toilet Paper
http://blumenauer.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1524&Itemid=1
The vampiric and gluttonous feeding frenzy currently being enjoyed by the federal government under the pretext of climate change is set to be expanded with a range of new taxes on products disposed of via waste water, including cosmetics, toothpaste and toilet paper.
The “Water Protection and Reinvestment Act,” H.R.3202, introduced last week by Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore), will be “financed broadly by small fees on such things as bottled beverages, products disposed of in wastewater, corporate profits, and the pharmaceutical industry,” according to Blumenauer’s fact sheet.
Though the taxes are “designed to be collected at the manufacturer level,” only the most naive would doubt that multinational corporations would just pass the cost on to the consumer in the form of higher prices, as is routine.
Items disposed of in wastewater, such as toothpaste, cosmetics, toilet paper and cooking oil will be subject to a 3% excise tax, while water beverages will be hit with a 4% tax, “because these products wind up in the water stream and require clean up by sewage treatment plants,” according to the bill.
The legislation also cites “climate change mitigation” as a justification for imposing the taxes. The Feds’ new feeding frenzy will rake in around $10 billion dollars a year.
According to Bloomberg.com, Goldman Sachs’ current record earnings from their free or low cost capital supplied by broke American taxpayers has led the firm to decide to boost compensation and benefits by 33 percent. On an annual basis, this comes to compensation of $773,000 per employee.
This should tell even the most dimwitted patriot who “their” government represents.
The worst of the economic crisis has not yet hit. I don’t mean the rest of the real estate crisis that is waiting in the wings. Home prices will fall further when the foreclosed properties currently held off the market are dumped. Store and office closings are adversely impacting the ability of owners of shopping malls and office buildings to make their mortgage payments. Commercial real estate loans were also securitized and turned into derivatives.
The real crisis awaits us. It is the crisis of high unemployment, of stagnant and declining real wages confronted with rising prices from the printing of money to pay the government’s bills and from the dollar’s loss of exchange value. Suddenly, Wal-Mart prices will look like Nieman Marcus prices.
Retirees dependent on state pension systems, which cannot print money, might not be paid, or might be paid with IOUs. They will not even have depreciating money with which to try to pay their bills. Desperate tax authorities will squeeze the remaining life out of the middle class.
Nothing in Obama’s economic policy is directed at saving the US dollar as reserve currency or the livelihoods of the American people. Obama’s policy, like Bush’s before him, is keyed to the enrichment of Goldman Sachs and the armament industries.
Matt Taibbi describes Goldman Sachs as “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentless jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.” Look at the Goldman Sachs representatives in the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations. This bankster firm controls the economic policy of the United States.
Little wonder that Goldman Sachs has record earnings while the rest of us grow poorer by the day.
Reality About Social Security
Just a tax, phoney insurance policy, mathematically flawed, will never never work
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MfbRlLVr2E
As the American people and politicians take more and more notice of how the FED/IRS combo causes our country great grief and economic instability, hindering our nation from becoming prosperous by steeling from the citizens who would otherwise make it prosperous, combined with the out of control spending sprees by congress, the more we will probably see the elite bankers that make up the FED grab for more and more money before they go down.
The FED probably loves the out of control spending sprees of congress. They rub their hands together for all the interest they will receive.
I did hear that Obama wants to increase the number of IRS workers. That was probably a request from the FED. I’m just guessing, but it seems logical considering the circumstances and the number of co-sponsors for HR 1207 and considering the state of our economy with some people unable or just not willing to pay their un-constitutional taxes.
Excluding Iraq and Afghanistan, the government is running a surplus of $200 Billion.
http://www.startribune.com/business/11217101.html
From the article:
Federal tax collections hit record high
Last update: May 10, 2007 – 1:40 PM
Yes, let’s all cheer a two year old article with a title that would be better stated as “Federal Government Steals More Money From The People Than Ever” or “Federal Government Loots at Record Pace”.
Anyway, about your income tax posts. You want the income tax abolished and tariffs implemented to make up the difference. Congratulations! You want the government to stop stealing from the people’s right pocket and start taking from the left.
So what if that article is 2 years old. They collected 11% more than the year before that. What makes you think that government spending obligations have increased or tax revenue has decreased since then. (excluding stimulus & recession)
And no it’s not taking money from different pockets. It’s only taking from the pocket thats buying foreign goods. If you don’t buy foreign goods than you wont have to pay higher costs. I can’t believe you still think domestic taxes are better than foreign taxes.. I’m against all federal government taxes but I would rather have it one way than the other.
“But, in general, the protective system of our day is conservative, while the free trade system is destructive. It breaks up old nationalities and pushes the antagonism of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie to the extreme point. In a word, the free trade system hastens the social revolution. It is in this revolutionary sense alone, gentlemen, that I vote in favor of free trade.” – Karl Marx
Just so you know.. He is saying that free trade makes socialism come faster. You should read his book.
There are two types of people in this world, bourgeoisies and proletarians. One type will always work for wages just to survive and the other will profit off of them.
I think you were missing the whole point.. The point is that our government would be running a surplus if we didn’t have a war. I’m not cheering income tax, and there is no reason for you to think I was.
Go to bed. The world will be fine tomorrow. Stop stressing, folks…
RON PAUL 2012 – I AM A BELIEVER.
But, we don’t need to worry about Monday morning on Tuesday.
JD
I have a question for anyone that can answer it. How can the lawmakers make an amendment(16th) that allows them to tax our paychecks when they legally can’t do it? When they made this amendment(16th) they broke the 13th amendment that which says that slavery and involuntary servitude is prohibited except as punishment for a crime.
Now some people would probably question the involuntary servitude part of this, but if the lawmakers tell you that you’ll either pay a certain portion of your paychecks to us, or go to jail, then that is definitely what I would call involuntary servitude.
Below is Involuntary servitude defined by Wikipedia.
Involuntary servitude is a United States legal and constitutional term for a person laboring against that person’s will to benefit another, under some form of coercion. While laboring to benefit another occurs in the condition of slavery, involuntary servitude does not necessarily connote the complete lack of freedom experienced in chattel slavery; involuntary servitude may also refer to other forms of unfree labor. Involuntary servitude is not dependent upon compensation or its amount.
The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution makes involuntary servitude illegal under any U.S. jurisdiction whether at the hands of the U.S. government or in the private sphere, except as punishment for a crime: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction
Now if Involuntary Servitude is Illegal then the 16th amendment, which the IRS and lawmakers refer to for justification of taking our money, is illegal also as far as forcing us to pay taxes on our labor. Am I missing something here or is this pretty much common sense?
Someone please help me to understand how lawmakers take an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United Sates and can turn around and continuously break it.
Anyone???
Bruce,
Go to http://www.losthorizons.com and read everthing. Buy the book cracking the code by Peter Hendrickson and read it. Then you will understand that the 16th amendment did not empower congress with any new taxing powers along with many other things. The people liable for “income tax” has remained basically the same since 1862. Type in US code 26 3401 in your search engine. From there, scroll down to see the definition of “wages” (3401(a) I believe), next go to “employee” 3401(c) and then “employer” 3401(d). With regard to worker pay only Federal connected “wages” are liable for income tax. There is remedy to get your property back. Read the book, Cracking the Code, and you will learn the truth.
Bruce: Not everybody works for their money. (The Fed just creates it and gives it away!) Anyway, the 16th amendment was passed and ratified. If we as a people want to repeal it we can do so. I would be all in favor of repealing it and going to the “Fair Tax” or something like it!
Yes the 16th amendment does allow income taxes. The income tax replaced taxes on foreign goods with the underwood tariff of 1913. I think that was the biggest mistake ever..
The fed doesn’t give money away, the fed gives money to the government and the government gives money away. They do this to replace money spent overseas on foreign goods. It’s called Keynesian economics.
It’s funny, i got an email from my senator about some tea party he planned on the 4th of July! It’s a sad sad world when the people we are supposed to be protesting to are protesting with us.
When was the last time anyone wrote legislation to abolish the income tax? Thats the largest government intrusion ever!! and for the record, the IRS is a part of the government, not the federal reserve. The government does not have to pay money to the federal reserve. The federal reserve collects it’s money from banking interest.
You just said it! “The Fed gives money to the government”. We are the government! That is a give away!
Well the fed lets the government BORROW money, and banks.. If we couldn’t borrow money than how would we buy a home?
The problem is the government doesn’t pay it back. So it is a give away! We can buy a home with cash, credit or barter. If we buy it on credit then we pay it back. Banks pay the Fed back.
Yes the 16th amendment was passed. Prior to the passage of the 16th amendment “income” was only described as “compensation of federal workers”. The definition not having changed since 1862. The Pollock ruling in 1895 upheld that private property (dividends from investing in federal instrumentalities) could not be treated as “income” even if associated with a taxable activity. So after the Pollock ruling still only federal workers were subject to an excise tax derived from “income” amounts.
The 16th amendment refers to federally derived “income”. At this point in US history the term “income” defined by congress had only ever refered to compensation of federal workers. So now, any private person who derives “income” from any federal instrumentalities must allow that specific “income” to be subject to the “income” tax.
For example, if you mow neighborhood yards grass for money. That money is private receipts and not subject to federal “income” tax. If you buy stock in, lets say freddie mac. Freddie mac is a federal corporation so any dividends you receive are liable for “income” tax. When you sell the freddie mac stock, the profit/loss is subject to “income” tax.
The federal income tax is still just an excise tax on federal derived money.
If none of this makes sense, google search title 26 3401 read it specifically (a),(c) and (d). Also, go to http://www.losthorizons.com to learn the truth about taxation in America.
Have you even read the 16th amendment?
16th Amendment – The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
ain’t it sick?
ya it is sick. I think the income tax is the worst attack on our liberty.
The IRS is not an agency of the U.S. Government
by Devvy Kidd
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJw-4SHl9qA&feature=related
The IRS is a government agency.. She’s not the brightest person..
So you checked out the court document that she referred to, in the vid, where a U.S. attorney denies that the IrS is an agency of the government?
Please Don’t WIKI Me !!!!
The Internal Revenue Service is a bureau of the Department of the Treasury under the immediate direction of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue. The Commissioner has general superintendence of the assessment and collection of all taxes imposed by any law providing internal revenue. The Internal Revenue Service is the agency by which these functions are performed.
– 26 C.F.R. section 601.101(a).
http://law.justia.com/us/cfr/title26/26-20.0.1.1.2.1.2.1.html
I think the question was, ‘So you checked out the court document that she referred to, in the vid, where a U.S. attorney denies that the IrS is an agency of the government?’
Honestly I didn’t check out the document that she was referring to. I actually only listened to a min. of the video, because I know by law the IRS is a government agency. I know her position, i already agreed and said that not all states ratified the 16th Amendment.
But, i’ll check it out for u.
You would be checking it out for u.
The question is rhetorical.
I actually have a dvd about the income tax with ron paul in it…
It’s really up to the supreme court. The IRS does give all of our tax dollars to the government. Whether or not if its Constitutional is a different story, and that is why many people have gotten away with it in court.. She says that it is an international agency which is totally false in every which way.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1656880303867390173
Sean,
Of course I have read the 16th amendment. Have you read the pertinent Supreme Court cases involving the 16th amendment? Here are a few.
Peck v. Lowe, 247 U.S. 165 (1918) ” The Sixteenth Amendment, although referred to in argument, has no real bearing and may be put out of view. As pointed out in recent decisions, it does not extend the taxing power to new or excepted subjects, but merely removes all occasion, which otherwise might exist, for an apportionment among the states of taxes laid on income, whether it be derived from one source or another.”
Helvering v. Edison Bros. Stores, 133 F2d 575 (1943)
“The Treasury cannot by interpretive regulations, make income of that which is not income within the meaning of the revenue acts of Congress, nor can Congress, without apportionment, tax as income that which is not income within the meaning of the 16th Amendment.”
Stanton v. Baltic Mining Co., 240 U.S. 103 (1916)
” The provisions of the Sixteenth Amendment conferred no new power of taxation but simply prohibited the complete and plenary power of income taxation possessed by Congress from the beginning from being taken out of the category of indirect taxation to which it inherently belonged…”
Court ruling show that 16th amendment refers to an excise tax on income. If the 16th amendment was refering to all income, then we would have a direct tax on all income which is disallowed by the Constitution.
So which income is liable for the excise tax? The answer is not everybody. Only taxpayers as defined by IRC are liable for federal income taxes.
I get the feeling that you, Sean, like everybody to believe that the only way to get rid of the IRS is get rid of the 16th amendment. I hope my observations are wrong.
For independent thinkers and seekers of the facts take the quiz at http://www.howyoubecomeliable.com .
It doesn’t matter what past supreme court judges ruled. It matters what present supreme justices rule.
You can play definition game all day long, it’s not going to get rid of the IRS.
and you can get more info at http://www.devvy.com
It is true that not all states ratified the 16th amendment. But how it is written, the government can tax us all they want.
Devvy Kidd, still kicking ass !!
Check out her vid on vote fraud.
Sean: Unfortunately, enough of them did ratify it so we’ll have to live with it for now.
It was Devvy Kidd’s little booklet “Why a Bankrupt America”, given to me in 1994, when I hadn’t the least bit of interest in politics or the economy, that started opening my eyes. Amazon currently has used copies ($50-$210), pamphlet out of print. It’s a power-packed little pamplet. Check out articles on her website too.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B0006S9PPW/ref=sr_1_olp_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247524198&sr=1-1
Hey, how about Devvy Kidd and Ron Paul 2012? …after the FED and IRS are audited and abolished of course. We are making way for them now!! Female, knowledgable, honest. THAT’S A WINNER! I bet she’s not inclined towards CFR, Bilderberg, Trilateral, etc. either. Outspoken for years against the FED/IRS.
Voter Fraud – Oh, my God…How free is America?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3GLohgHJ8M
No wonder Americans don’t get what they want!
Vote by paper ballots and pencils!
I read some of dewy’s difference between a republic and democracy. She is kind of correct but does not fully understand how the term is used.. We are a Democracy.. Democracy means majority rule, well our congress is democratic. The majority of congress rules. Because we also have the rule of law, we are considered a democratic republic.. Thomas Jefferson founded the Democratic-Republican party. Thomas Jefferson understood exactly what that meant, he did write the declaration for independence.. She is wrong to think that we do not live in a democratic society.
lol
It’s Devvy, not dewy.
haha, i like dewy more.
haha, well, I like her more than you do!
There should be alot more female political figures besides nancy pelosi and sarah palin.. There are lots of female congresswomen and senators, but they aren’t recognized enough.
Bottom of page 3 on into page 4
http://www.greenes.us/files/Docket_17.pdf
“…wherein both Betty Richardsom, a United States Attorney, and Richard R. Ward, a United States Department of Justice Trail Attorney, Tax Division,>/b> “and qui tam Plaintiffs have further explained that the Named Accused Government Contractor (IRS) has never been authorized by an Act of Congress to exist as such and is not an organization within meaning of Title 31 > Subtitle I > Chapter 3 > Subchapter I-Organization which explicitly lists the organizational structure of the United States Department of the Treasury.”
A review of the pleadings in the matter of: DIVERSIFIED METAL PRODUCTS, INC. v. T-BOW COMPANY TRUST, INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE, AND STEVE MORGAN, Civil No. 93-405-E-EJL in the United States District Court for the District of Idaho shows that the Plaintiff alleged on page 2 of his pleading, in paragraph number 4, that “Defendant Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is an agency of the United States government . . . .”
***
In its ANSWER AND CLAIM by United States Attorney Betty H. Richardson and Trial Attorney, Tax Division, U.S. Department of Justice Richard R. Ward, Attorneys for the United States of America, the Government stated under oath:
“4. Denies that the Internal Revenue Service is an agency of the United States Government….”
The Internal Revenue Service operates in an ancillary or other secondary capacity under contract, memorandum or agreement or some comparable device to provide services under original authority delegated to the Treasury Financial Management Service or some other bureau of the Department of the Treasury; the contracted or otherwise authorized services extend only to government employees and employers, as defined at 26 U.S.C. §§ 3401(c) & (d). The authorization is essentially intra-governmental in nature; it does not extend to private sector enterprise in States of the Union.
*** and there’s more!
search Barton A Buhtz – Consumer Advocate. You should find a link to a letter.
***
Through the clever use of language the government promotes the fraud.
http://famguardian.org/Subjects/Taxes/Intelligence/BiggestHeist.htm
After over 12 years of intense research of the Law, asking everyone in government including the IRS to produce a law that requires us to file and pay the federal income tax, many filings of requests under the Freedom of Information Act, and actually having brought suit against the IRS, we can assure you that there is no such law. It is our conclusion that the 65 million Americans that have stopped filing and paying the fraud known as the income tax are the last remnant of real Americans, brave to the core. It is also my conclusion based upon all these years of study that every person (no slip) that files and pays the federal income tax on April 15th does so only out of the paralyzing fear of a terrorist organization known as the Internal Revenue Service.
I agree with all of this. I was just trying to make the point that the IRS does give all of the tax dollars to the treasury as stated.
I have this movie on DVD..
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1656880303867390173
You have to watch out. People go to jail all the time who bring that up in court. It’s up to the judge.
The gold standard would keep congress from massive spending sprees. We would not have the massive national debt and recent incidences would not have been made possible if the gold standard was in place. The number of costly wars would reduce, the FED simply would not get its way with so much of our money. This dollar that has been reduced to nearly nothing, a meaningless peace of paper made way for an oppressive government that overburdens the citizens with taxation without representation. Returning to the gold standard, auditing the FED, then abolishing and its partner, the IRS, will take freedom away from the FED, keep our government under control, and return freedom to the citizens.
The wealthy elite, who are behind the imposition of the recent bailouts, can then pay back our national debt to China. They created it, they can pay it!
Hello. Spending may increase in proportion to need or to available funds. Eliminating income tax altogether is one option, another is to tax only the truly wealthy (and a a lesser rate than would discourage wealth or drive it away). Elimination may be the better option, as many government practices are excesssive or unneccesary.
Special interest groups and the press can and do cause public hysteria over rare events and utter nonsense. If by some mechanism one can restrain govenment spending to what is actually required, then funds from moderate property and excise taxes combined with reified tariffs ought to provide a surplus.
Ah, yes. Please do not presume to imagine that the Preamble and principle body of the U.S. Constitution are written in anything other than Georgian English. The end to which this “Great Experiment” is to work, (from the Preamble) is to “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity”. The Revolution deposed a government that taxed it’s colonies to fund an expensive war, while depending on that colonial sysetem to secure raw materials and a partly captive market. Thank you, any of you, that made it through all my little rant.
Written by The Maine Patriot, David RobinsonThe Maine Patriot, David Robinson
Last Updated: July 8th, 2009
How could Congress charter private Banks or the non-federal Federal Reserve System when the Constitution says it can’t? Congress chartered the First Bank of the United States, a private Central Bank, under the loophole they wrote into the U.S. Constitution pertaining to national emergencies and war.
The new federal United States subscribed $2,000,000 for 20% of the capital stock of the private First Bank of the United States.
So who controls the States, the federal United States and their courts? Yes! The British Board of Trade. And who established the British Board of Trade? Right again. The King of Great Britain.
THE NEW STATE REPLACES THE KING
In 1730, the King sent a Royal governor to North Carolina and demanded that he order the North Carolina Assembly to require registration of all holdings of land so that an accurate “rent roll” (tax list) could be sent to the Crown. So now there are Two Governors in existence for that State.
The Assembly received complaints that tax collectors were demanding 7 or 8 pounds sterling in local currency for every 1 pound sterling taxes owed, to which the tax collectors threatened to add additional charges if they had to seize the taxed property for payment. (Distant rumblings of the present day private IRS based in Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms taking orders from the Secretary of the Treasury of Puerto Rico as defined in 27 CFR 250.11).
We are not free and never have been. So much for the U.S. Constitution that was to keep the Government and the private agents and corporations it employs in check.
When a County of a State demands a “rent roll” tax (property tax) it is informing you that you don’t own your property at all because you have pledged it to the State. If you did own your property, the County could not sell it for delinquent “rent roll” payments called property taxes.
If you really owned your home and ever lost your job or came upon hard times, you would at least have a roof over your head and not have to come up with extortion money to pay the “taxes.” This extortion has gone on since the Declaration of Independence and The Revolutionary War that was supposed to set you free; or so you thought.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Contrary to what most people in America believe, the Sheriff is not (what you have been taught) a protector of man’s rights. The Royal Governor appointed an Executive Officer of the County court who was also the “Provost Marshall.” In 1738 this title was changed to “Sheriff.” The Proprietors had to enforce the Acts of the British Parliament, so who better qualified to do this other than the Provost Marshall (Provincial Marshall)?
“Provost” is defined in Webster’s Dictionary in many ways, but it generally means “a person appointed to superintend or preside over something.” A Provost answers to the Mayor, the President, the King, or Etc. The definition doesn’t mention him reporting to the people; cause he can’t.
Although the Sheriff goes through the election process today, he swears allegiance to the State via the State’s Constitution. His allegiance is not to the people but to the corporate establishment ruled by the Governor of the Corporate State. So he is still a “Provost Marshall.”
To whom did the Sheriff of Nottingham report? From whom did he collect revenue? For whom did he collect it? Ah-ha! He was no Robin Hood, was he?
You would report a crime on a military base to the Provost Marshall (its Sheriff).
We are still under the King’s War Power Act and are considered to be the “enemy” of the Corporate United States. They just added icing on the Cake by additional War Power Acts in 1812, 1861, and 1933. Since then every State of the corporate United States has re-stated the Emergency War Power Acts as late as the 1990s.
Don’t you just love the Constitution that you claim to have loved so much and have supported all of your life?
What sort of excise taxes does Ron Paul support? Does he support a sin tax? Would he tax drugs if legalized?
You need a computer, Patrick
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Ron_Paul#Economy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qI5lC4Z_T80
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2007/11/09/defending-ron-pauls-tax-plan/
http://www.ronpaul.com/on-the-issues/taxes/
How can the democrats get away with taxing and doing away with coal? Are they trying to break us? Sir I am a hard working blue collar man trying to make a living. I have two sons in collage, a house note plus my regular bills. The democrats now want to tax my benifits from work. I am mad as hell. Enough is enough. They in washington have to be stopped. Can you help us. Are you the only sane voice in that god forsaken city? Sorry that you have to read my complains, but something has to be done we are nearing the end. I do not not own a pistol but will now go buy one. Like I have said enough is enough people are fed up with washinton. God Bless you and keep up the good work.
mad as hell
Carl Smith
With so much spending into further debt at the taxpayers expense, what will be left over from our paychecks to actually be financially responsible for ourselves and our families?
With the rise in medical insurance/expenses, same question?
The government has allowed and promoted loans that ended up being our recent foreclosures, so they’ve taken homes away.
What is happening to our right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
A government that takes, takes, takes, but doesn’t give is no government at all. It serves no good purpose…all waste and ruin.
Individuals like Joe are a great example of everything that is wrong with this country today. Like any good Keynesian, he ignorantly assigns blame for most negative economic issues on the free market, actually saying with a straight face that removing the 75% marginal tax rate on higher income actually caused the boom/bust cycles of the Great Depression and our current recession. PURE IDIOCY.
Read the works of Ron Paul, Thomas Woods, Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises, etc. and combine with a little common sense and you’d see that the Federal Reserve’s inflationary monetary policy and fractional reserve banking practices are the single biggest cause of boom/bust cycles. Artificially lowering interest rates by increasing the money supply (as the Fed does) horribly destabalizes the economic equilibrium that would normally be in place through the unadulterated, voluntary exchange of goods and services between private businesses and consumers. The boom that is created isn’t real. When everyone finally “wakes up” to the facade the Fed has created the bubble bursts and working Americans are left to watch the Federal government then apply BS Keynesian theory to try and solve the problem (i.e. spend spend spend, debt debt debt). This wonderful mentality prolongs the depressions just like FDR’s New Deal held the country in a depression well into WW2. Thanks Keynesians but keep your crackpot ideas where they belong: in the trashcan.
A little research will show that when Reagan reduced the top marginal tax rate, the federal goverment reported an INCREASE in taxable income and profit! This FACT, which is explained by a little thing called the Laffer curve, demonstrates how such high tax rates SUFFOCATE industry growth and actually REDUCE government profits from taxes.
Joe, no one is impressed by your ability to look up historic quotes to “support” your views. Most of your views are not only wrong but dangerously detached from reality. I agree that certain funds are needed to support police, public works, etc. but the methods you support to provide those funds are flat out wrong and immoral. You say that most people don’t know how to best spend their money…? I can only shake my head at this statement. God help you.
Unfortunately, we don’t have the money nor the influential people from within our class structure to start our own “think-tank” to discuss how to change our country for the middleclass.
I found this article that discloses the Biberberger agenda however……
for more ……http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13808
“The True Story of the Bilderberg Group” and What They May Be Planning Now
A Review of Daniel Estulin’s book
by Stephen Lendman
excerpt…
Bilderberg Objectives
The Group’s grand design is for “a One World Government (World Company) with a single, global marketplace, policed by one world army, and financially regulated by one ‘World (Central) Bank’ using one global currency.” Their “wish list” includes:
– “one international identify (observing) one set of universal values;”
– centralized control of world populations by “mind control;” in other words, controlling world public opinion;
– a New World Order with no middle class, only “rulers and servants (serfs),” and, of course, no democracy;
– “a zero-growth society” without prosperity or progress, only greater wealth and power for the rulers;
– manufactured crises and perpetual wars;
– absolute control of education to program the public mind and train those chosen for various roles;
– “centralized control of all foreign and domestic policies;” one size fits all globally;
– using the UN as a de facto world government imposing a UN tax on “world citizens;”
– expanding NAFTA and WTO globally;
– making NATO a world military;
– imposing a universal legal system; and
– a global “welfare state where obedient slaves will be rewarded and non-conformists targeted for extermination.”
Secret Bilderberg Partners
In the US, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is dominant. One of its 1921 founders, Edward Mandell House, was Woodrow Wilson’s chief advisor and rumored at the time to be the nation’s real power from 1913 – 1921. On his watch, the Federal Reserve Act passed in December 1913 giving money creation power to bankers, and the 16th Amendment was ratified in February creating the federal income tax to provide a revenue stream to pay for government debt service.
I have read all of this and at the end of it all I am not for any kind of tax really. Why should i be so happy to? some of the comments above about the 16th amendment being legal or not, it doesn’t matter, since when in recent history has our government cared about legality? Seems to me they pretty much do what they want anyhow. I understand the government has an overhead, and they have duties to fulfill, but until they stop giving them selves raises, doling out lucrative contracts to their buddies in the form of no-bid contracts and generally being a pain in my ass on a daily basis, i find no reason to pay into that sort of activity, and that is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. We know, as current tax payers, that much of the money we pay into the system never sees its way back into our lives, and when it does in the form of an ear mark its rallied against by the other side as pork barrel spending. Ron Paul puts it best when he explains that its his duty to pass ear marks for his district, to improve the lives of his constituents with their own tax dollars. if that line of thinking isn’t making any sense stop reading now. I am not now, nor will i ever be in favor of any taxes, here’s the caveat, i do understand the necessity of some for of taxation, as stated before, to fund the government overhead and to pay for the duties they must fulfill. I cant help be leery of any form of government, having served in the Army i was witness to massive amounts of power corruption on a small scale. Coming form Illinois i know all about dirty politics and how it affects the people. If you use Illinois itself as a microcosm of the USA, one can see that we are circling the drain. I don’t know what the fix is, but i believe Ron Paul does. His message is the one i have been wanting to hear. sound money, small government etc etc and if he were in charge and told me what my taxes were going to be; under his leadership i couldn’t argue; because i know he has the best interests of the PEOPLE in mind and the big picture at stake. Not like the current regime and the past regimes who seem to have themselves in mind when the enter and leave office. I wont follow this up so don’t get up in arms about my not willing to pay taxes since i already have stated that if Ron Paul can justify them ill pay them, but as things stand, the government wants too much and is too big and does too many things wrong to deserve my hard earned money.
More taxes soon im sure, with the obama administration.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
We need to let both houses know how we as taxpayers feel. Let them know check out http://www.gradegov.com
Chances are if something doesn’t seem right, it isn’t. According to the Constitution, direct taxes can only be laid upon an individual through apportionment to the several states. In this manner, I may be taxed for unwanted services by the Congress through the states by enumeration of the population of the state, the state receives a bill and collects from the individual through lawful taxes. If my Congressman votes to spend the money through an appropriations bill, then I am taxed by the state for the amount of money assessed against my property, usually business property. My property taxes are the only ones which are lawful, except that the county has to lay this tax and they already tax for unlawful reasons, like unwanted services. As far as excise taxes go, income is taxable under an excise tax and income is not my wages. Income is the gain on securities issued when there is a taxable priveledge of writing them. This tax would only fall on the banks and that is why we still pay it. The banking system and the income tax are so intricately connected, that there is no way to stop it except to make the bank pay the income tax and stop taxing the people through inflation of the money. This is a Republic, our representatives are “democraticly” elected. I also have some swamp land in Florida I can sell you if you believe our elections are democratic. Breaking the Code is a good book to read, but fighting income tax can be done only through our representatives. IRS agents believe they work for the government and believe they have authority to assess Citizens for income tax. This is the problem. Education through campaigns such as the Campaign for Liberty will help, but what about Revolution?
I keep seeing the word democracy used here. I think it is very important to understand and realize that the United States is NOT a democracy. A democracy by definition says that majority rules. That if the majority say something should be a certain way then that is the way it should be. That if a majority rules that all should be taxed to pay for something that the majority wants then so be it. That if a majority votes that we want to take a persons house, then they can take any persons house, just because that is what the majority wanted.
The U.S. is not a democracy. The U.S. was started and the constitution was written to protect the individual’s rights and freedoms, no matter what the majority wants.
Now with this understood let us talk about taxes. Is it a violation of my individual rights to take money from me to pay for something that I may or may not want to pay for? Is it a violation of my individual rights to take money from me to pay for roads and other public services that we all use. Well the latter is arguable. We all use the roads, even if we don’t drive, etc. But, is it a violation of my individual rights to take money from me to give to someone else just because they don’t work, just because the majority says that I should. I think this NOT arguable. It is a clear violation of my rights to do this. Is it s violation of my rights to take money from me to pay for someone else’s healthcare with the promise to pay for mine in the future. To me this is a clear violation of my rights. I don’t want their healthcare and I do not want to pay for someone elses. I do not want to pay for someone else to live just because they don’t want to work. It is my right to have this opinion and my right not to be stolem from to pay for something even if the majority say I should.
Whether or not the sixteenth amendment was properly ratified, there has never been a statute written which requires Citizens to pay tax on incomes since 1895. That tax was under scrutiny in Pollack v Farmers Savings and loan. This was before the passage of the sixteenth amendment. However, Brushaber v Union Pacific Railroad is the case which says that the sixteenth amendment did nothing to expand the taxing powers of Congress to new subjects. Non resident aliens were already being taxed on incomes, but only certain classes of income, the income from bonded indebtedness. Treaties changed that in 1932 when it was decide that a foreign corporation could pay income tax on 3/4 of its commercial profits, in lieu of the tax on bonded indebtedness. Under the Revenue Act of 1934, we find the requirement to withhold tax from incomes. Section 143 (b) says “Nonresident Aliens, All persons, in whatever capacity acting, including lessees or mortgagors of real or personal property, fiduciaries, employers, and all officers and employees of the United States having the control, receipt, custody, disposal, or payment of interest, rent, salaries, wages, premiums, annuities, compensations, remunerations, emoluments, or other fixed or determinable annual or periodical gains, profits and income, of any nonresident alien individual or any partnership not engaged in a trade or business within the United States and not having any office or place of business therein and composed in whole or in part of nonresident aliens….shall deduct and withhold from such annual or periodical gains a tax of 4 percentum thereof.”
Section 144 says in case of any foreign corporation subject to taxation under this title (meaning Title I income tax, not Title 26) not engaged in a trade or business within the United States, and not having any office or place of business therein, there shall be deducted and withheld at the source in the same manner and upon the same items of income as is provided in section 143, a tax equal to 13¾ percentum, and such tax shall be returned and paid in the same manner and subject to the same conditions as provided in that section.”
SECTION 145 OF THIS ACT, TITLE I, INCOME TAX, IS THE ONLY SECTION WHICH PROVIDES A PENALTY FOR NOT FILING A RETURN OR PAYING A TAX IT SAYS:
Any person required under this title (Title I income tax) to pay any tax, or required by law or regulations made under authority thereof to make a return, keep any records or supply any information for the purposes of the computation assessment or collection of any tax imposed by this title, who willfully fails to pay such tax, make such return, keep such records, or supply such information, at the time or times required by law or regulations, shall in addition to other penalties provided by law, be guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction thereof, be fined not more than $10,000, or imprisoned for not more than one year or both together with the costs of prosecution.
SECTION 143 AND 144 ARE THE ONLY REQUIREMENTS TO WITHHOLD, KEEP RECORDS AND FILE INFORMATION RETURNS.
What we will find in reading the Statutes at Large comprisng the income tax, is that income is the gain or loss from bonded indebtedness. But by 1934, since the tax on bonded indebtedness had virtually been redefined to mean a tax on distributions of earnings and profits to foreigners and a tax on personal services for foreign corporations provided by officers of the United States whether within or outside the United States, Title I, the tax on securities was no longer necessary, so Title II, the tax we have been talking about above, became Title I of the same statues when amended.
Under the Federal Insurance Contributions Act of 1939, we find amendments to the Shipping Act of 1916 or later called the Merchant’s Marine Act. 39 Stat 728, clarifies what a common carrier is for the purpose of employment tax.
Under the Internal Revenue Code of 1939, amendments to this Shipping Act are found in sections 1400-2400. Under sections 1530 of the 1939 Code we find General Provisions for the section termed “Employment Tax”.
It says: Administration, The taxes imposed by this subchapter shall be collected by the “Bureau of Internal Revenue” and under section 1532 we find definitions. (a) Employer- the term employer means any carrier (as defined in subsection (h) of this section), and any company which is directly or indirectly owned or controlled by one or more of such carriers or under common control therewith and which operates any equipment or facility or performs any service (except trucking service, casual service, and the casual operation of equipment or facilities) in connection with the transportation of passengers or property by railroad, or the receipt, delivery, elevation, transfer in transit, refrigeration or icing, storage, or handling of property transported by railroad… which have been organized in accordance with the provisions of the Railway Labor Act, as amended and their State and National legislative committees…
And of course an employee means any person in the service of one or more employers for compensation. This act sets up a mandatory contribution made by employers and employees alike in order to set up a retirement system. Understanding that the Merchant Marines of 1916 had been set up for a retirement and unemployment system so that carriers could provide the same privileges as the regular Navy when in service to the regular Navy.
Professor Albert G. Hart, just before the passage of the Current Tax Payment Act in 1943, reminded key congressional committees “We are already collecting taxes, or contributions if you like, from a large part of our wage earners and salaried people under the Social Security Act. That offers a nucleus for this reorganization. Besides this, we have already a system of reporting at the source by employers, a force of internal revenue field agents, and so forth. Accordingly, we have the makings of an adequate tax machine. Most of the parts are there.” (The part which was not actually there was an actual statute imposing the tax on wages of domestic citizens.)
Check out http://www.losthorizons.com for more income tax related information. The website, and more specifically the book “Cracking the Code” will clarify if you are a (income) taxpayer or a non-taxpayer by Internal Revenue Code. I am a non-taxpayer by Internal Revenue Code.
I don’t know anyone off hand in my life, besides myself, that have gone out of their way to read at least some of the Communist Manifesto, or to research Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. You know that 99% of the population have an idea of socialism and communism that is rooted in red scare propaganda and the communist bastardization in China and the USSR. You are knowingly exploiting this ignorance and disrespecting what is a very intelligent book and its very intelligent author. Talk about the atrocities of Stalin or Kim Jong Il, but don’t think for a second that Marx and Engels are at all associated with that.
While the original intentions of the Communist Manifesto are different than what Stalin carried out there is one simple truth about Communism as a whole.
It removes almost all choice from the individual and gives it to the state.
For every person that a centrally planned government helps, it keeps another back. For every crack baby that gets medical care, a child molester also gets that same medical care. For every legitimate welfare case out there, there is also a case of a welfare queen.
The real Evil of Marxism and Communism as a whole is just the freedom of making your own choices for yourself. This is why i find it extremely funny that in one sentance a liberal will talk about the freedom of choice for a woman to have an abortion and then in the next sentance talk about how Taxes or a universal health care system (which removes a choice from the majority of Americans). Which is it? Do liberals want people to be able to make their own choices in their life or not? Or is it that you want the Government to be making CERTAIN choices for everyone? Where is this going to stop? Do you honestly believe that if we give the government more power at some point they will say “whoa whoa there tiger, that’s enough power”. No. Handing over more power to the Federal Government can only lead to one thing…..even MORE power going to them later on.
And realistically nothing will ever get fixed. That’s the game they are playing with us. Having things to complain about keeps congress important. Realisitically the three branches of the Federal Government are the most narcessitic group f people in the entire country. They have to be doing something when normally doing nothing is a reasonably (and oftentimes preferable) alternative. but they cannot allow themselves to do this. They have to have their pet projects to get re-elected.
Want to see what I mean? Get back to me in 3 years. 3 years from now here is what is going to be debated on:
National Healthcare
Afghanistan (probably Iraq as well)
Economy (will it still be somewhat in the tubes? my guess is yes)
Failing infrastructure
Yet arent these the kinds of things that Democrats ran on and won in these past few cycles? Cant Democrats basically pass ANY bill they want to right now? How can they possibly run on these things when they have 4 entire years to pass whatever the hell they want?
Mark my words they will. Thats where our Tax dollars are going. to non-solutions. they go to things to keep people important so they get re-elected.
Zach, you sound so sure about everything, but you’re wrong and you will see in three years.
These are problems that can be fixed. These are problems we did not have until the far right conservative moment took over in the 1970’s, starting officially in 1980 with Reagan.
We had it figured out from the New Deal up to Reagonimics when the fundamentals of the American economy were altered drastically.
Here’s a quote from Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1954:
“Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”
Well there number is no longer neglible. The far right crazies have been going after real Republicans for decades so now the whole Republican party is full of religious and market fundamentalists.
Did you hear President Obamas radio address this weekend?
“I realize that passing this budget won’t be easy. Because it represents real and dramatic change, it also represents a threat to the status quo in Washington. I know that the insurance industry won’t like the idea that they’ll have to bid competitively to continue offering Medicare coverage, but that’s how we’ll help preserve and protect Medicare and lower health care costs for American families. I know that banks and big student lenders won’t like the idea that we’re ending their huge taxpayer subsidies, but that’s how we’ll save taxpayers nearly $50 billion and make college more affordable. I know that oil and gas companies won’t like us ending nearly $30 billion in tax breaks, but that’s how we’ll help fund a renewable energy economy that will create new jobs and new industries. I know these steps won’t sit well with the special interests and lobbyists who are invested in the old way of doing business, and I know they’re gearing up for a fight as we speak. My message to them is this: ‘So am I.’”
National health care has begun. He has announced the date we will leave Iraq. And he is restoring the fundamentals necessary of a good economy, the same fundamentals that built the great American middle class.
The past few decades, there has not been smaller government under these market fundamentalist Presidents. It’s simply been a government that works with big banks and corporations to destroy the middle class. To destroy our democracy and return us to the aristocracy from which our ancestors found in America a safehaven from.
“There’s class warfare, all right,” Mr. Buffett said, “but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
“For every person that a centrally planned government helps, it keeps another back.” Good point. That’s why the right balance is the economy we functioned under from 1935-1980. It’s all about efficiency and equality and finding the right balance. Market fundamentalism is at one end of the sprectrum, Socialism at the other. Democratic Socialism is the middle. Democratic Socialism is where the COMMONS are socialized, but not the means of production. Get back to me in eight years, that’s where we’ll be. It’s where we have to be survive as a nation.
I wish this was correct. But it is not. I have no doubt Obama is well intentioned but, unfortunately, he has all the wrong ideas and is listening to all the wrong people.
How is it not correct? This is what is frustrating. Just like Zach, I’m hearing no talk about the actual policies. What’s not correct? What are the wrong ideas? What are the right ideas?
I think you are both overcomplicating this whole thing.
We had it figured out. We know how to do it. We had it figured out for almost 200 years all the way until Reagan! It’s called the “American System”. Hopefully you’ll learn from this quote by Henry Carey:
“Two systems are before the world;… One looks to increasing the necessity of commerce; the other to increasing the power to maintain it. One looks to underworking the Hindoo, and sinking the rest of the world to his level; the other to raising the standard of man throughout the world to our level. One looks to pauperism, ignorance, depopulation, and barbarism; the other to increasing wealth, comfort, intelligence, combination of action, and civilization. One looks towards universal war; the other towards universal peace.”
This part the most important:
“One is the English system; the other we may be proud to call the American system, for it is the only one ever devised the tendency of which was that of elevating while equalizing the condition of man throughout the world.”
What Ron Paul supports, what his supporters support, and what today’s conservatives support is what is called the BRITISH SYSTEM!
“Henry Clay’s “American System,” devised in the burst of nationalism that followed the War of 1812, remains one of the most historically significant examples of a government-sponsored program to harmonize and balance the nation’s agriculture, commerce, and industry. This “System” consisted of three mutually reenforcing parts: a tariff to protect and promote American industry; a national bank to foster commerce; and federal subsidies for roads, canals, and other “internal improvements” to develop profitable markets for agriculture. Funds for these subsidies would be obtained from tariffs and sales of public lands. Clay argued that a vigorously maintained system of sectional economic interdependence would eliminate the chance of renewed subservience to the free-trade, laissez-faire “British System.”"
I really think that National Health care is a TERRIBLE idea, and I hope that somehow it is stopped. I think privatizing it could be a better solution, but I doubt that it will ever happen. I think that it would lower costs of health care services and goods because there wouldn’t be any overhead insurance company costs.
For that matter, I also think we should try out not having any safety nets in this country, and see where that takes us. No welfare, no unemployment (unless it’s some kind of private company thing), and no government funded health care for people who “can’t afford it”. Personally, if a child doesn’t have health care, then I believe it’s the parents fault for not making it possible, or considering it important enough to sacrifice certain luxuries for. And I also agree with whoever said above that they would never collect welfare – good for you! Find another way to get the money and take care of your family and yourself!
Just some thought I wanted to get out there, thanks for reading.
Does Joe sound like Saul Alinsky?
Taxes are a form of charity work. If there was more good in the world, than there wouldn’t be as much evil.
At a loss for words …..
rotflmao
Another thing that’s been on my mind lately and proves to me that a working individual can’t and shouldn’t be taxed for labor, is how can they possibly tax us any different than a company. I feel that our lives are actually a business. We export our time and labor and we import products to live.
What if we all register our lives as a business and then at the end of the year we take our expenses(vehicle payment, house payment, food, gas, insurance(medical, dental, vision, auto and house), donations, entertainment/vacations, etc., and then we deduct our expenses from the gross. What’s left over is the profit or gain, and since we will be the CEO’s we get our bonus, which takes the profit/gain, and then there is nothing really left to tax because the bonus would probably be less than the minimun taxable amount.
To me this is just a simple example as to why individuals can’t/shouldn’t be taxed for their labor. I definitely believe that Ron Paul understands all of this and that’s why I’m grabbing my oar Red Wine.
A shakedown is a shakedown, no matter what other names it is called. After all, rape IS sex, you could learn to enjoy it.
Academic discussions/debates are nice to keep your brain sharp and open your eyes to other viewpoints. But while we talk, we grow poorer. It does not matter whether Income Tax was ratified unless we are willing and able to do something about it. Thomas Jefferson is dead. Friedman Shmeedman. Distraction, no action.
Ron Paul is doing things. Grab an oar or jump ship so this vessel can move. If you know of another boat going the right way, let’s hear it.
Funny thing about the income tax: it was originally judged by the Supreme court (cant for the life of me remember the name) to say that individuals were not liable and the word “income” meant corperate income instead of individual income.
There is a lot of shadey stuff about the income tax. Some say the amendment never passed (citing proff certain states either didnt legally accept the amendment or some outright never signed). Some claim there is no law in the books to even hold a person liable. The biggest part thats so screwed up on income taxes though is how extremely overcomplicated they are and how many loopholes thst creates
Most states rattified the ammendment but not all did. Thats why you can get away with not paying your income taxes in some states… And thats why some people get arrested, bc they think the same rule applies with all states…
Federal Income tax is fairly straight forward. Some people are liable for federal income tax, most people are not liable for federal income tax with regards to w-2s. What makes the IRS, income tax seem ’shadey’ are seemingly common terms used, such as ‘employee’, ‘wages’, ‘trade or business’ to name a few. By internal revenue code, employees are
(3401(c)) “For purposes of this chapter, the term “employee” includes an officer, employee, or elected official of the United States, a State or any political subdivision thereof, or the District of Columbia, or any agency or instrumentality of any one or more of the foregoing. The term “employee” also includes an officer of a corporation.”
wages
(3401)For purposes of this chapter, the term “wages” means all remuneration (other than fees paid to a public official) for services performed by an employee for his employer,…
trade or business
The term “trade or business” includes the performance of the functions of a public office.
It turns out, if you work for the federal government you owe taxes based on your wage. If you make any money from federally owned or partially owned corporations that money is taxable per the 16th amendment. Any receipts for money that are federally connected are liable for federal taxation.
For a detailed history of the federal income tax go to losthorizons.com and buy the book “Cracking the Code the fascinating truth about taxation in america”
The Internal revenue code is complicated because of its structure. To find pertinent information is like looking for a needle in a hay stack. The IRS knows where the info is, they just won’t tell you.
Read the book, you will learn alot.
There are a lot of loop holes, use them to your advantage
you’d be suprised the ammount of things you can get the irs to pay for.
Well I can agree with that, or at least respect that. Along with what Bruce said as well.
I think, though, the only realistic way to change things is to roll back the Reagan tax cuts. This wont hurt the middle class, this well help the average taxpayer. The middle class are the ones being forced to pay for these bailouts when it should be those who make over 3 million a year. And their top marginal rate should be at 75%, therefore this bill is not put on our children, and grandchildren, and great grandchildren, but it is fixed in a decade or two. So the average person wont be getting taxed any heavier than they are now, actually less. The corporate tax could also be raised back up to 50%. Corporations pay an effective 9% corporate tax, the lowest in the world. (It’s not 35%, the effective is what they actually have to pay). Even Republicans like Eisenhower and Nixon thought that this system was perfect. And none of these big deficits came until Reagan when he cut taxes for those at the top so the middle class had to start paying higher taxes and going into deep debts. I don’t look at this as redistribution of wealth, I look at it as the only tax system that works in modern-day America. That’s where I stand, the end, no more :-X
You make a terribly wrong assumption about me. I am willing to pay taxes. I Don’t want to pay taxes TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. There is an extremely specific reason for this. Individual states do not have the right to print their own money.
States are limited on what they are allowed to do by their actual citizens tax revenue. Want medical care for everyone in the state? I’m not wholely against that. Want state parks, new roads, a Pizza hut on every corner funded by the state? Go for it. At some point the people do get sick of being taxed though. And then they elect people to toss out the crap they don’t want.
The Federal government does not have this restriction. They literally never have to drop any program, any agency, any pork barrel spending. Simply because they have the sole right to (and i quote)
“To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures”
That part of Art 1 Sec 8 gives the government free reign on spending. Right now they arent following that part (they have the much much worse Federal Reserve there to do their dirty work) but they also are not following the Tenth Amendment either which states:
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Whether parks should be funded or not really shouldnt be up to discussion right now. It’s unconstitutional for the federal government to fund them. Whther there should be a national healthcare is the same way, Congress legally cannot even vote on it but noone cares.
The Constitution was set up specifically to prevent the Federal Government from growing too large. It gave the federal government specific rights to pass laws on specific matters (seriously, check out Art 1 Section 8). Many people cite the saying of “general welfare” in the constitution to give congress basically any power as long as it’s named in the welfare of its people, which is a rediculous argument, or why have anything else in art 1 section 8?.
The federal government can mask any shortfalls in their budget with the stroke of a pen in a completely legal manner. Ever wonder where Bush got the money to pay for the $700 billion bailout? Wonder where Obama is getting the $800 billion for his? Have you noticed how the Obama bailout actually has the audacity to even have a tax cut built into it? This is the true danger of the large central government. Right now they don’t even have to tax anyone any money whatsoever technically (doing that is a bad idea simply because it would cause hyper inflation).
Taxes are meant to be the great equalizer of power. People will only pay so much before they get sick and tired of it. By making the amount of taxes we pay relatively meaningless in the Federal governments eyes, the people in power can spend money on doing basically whatever they want to assure their re-election. Believe it or not people love getting stuff from their representatives. Getting the federal government to build a new park in your town increases that towns revenue and their standard of living goes up. but that money comes from somewhere. Giving billions of dollars a year to prop up a nation that has enough money to defend itself already will help you with the humanitarian type voters, but again someone has to pay the bills.
Again. States cannot do this kind of stuff. they can only spend what their citizens are willing to bear. I have zero problem paying Illinois state taxes, even though I don’t agree with a bunch of crap they spend money on. At least it’s freaking legal. i DO have a problem paying to the Federal Government. Where the majority of their spending is technically illegal. yet noone cares anymore. Noone wants to go through the correct legal channels to change the Constitution so they can legally vote on their favorite big money bill. It all makes me wonder, why do we have a Constitution anymore?
Why do several people on here think that the government won’t survive unless they get the majority of their money illegaly from our paychecks? If they actually started holding corporations accountable and made them pay their fair share then they would still get their share of tax money, and it would be in accordance with the Constitution.
See, we the people, work and buy things such as; Food, clothing, shelter, water, electricity, furniture, tires, luxuries, etc. This creates more jobs and the companies make the profits and they pay the taxes. That’s how the Government is suppose to get their tax money, and then their suppose to know how to manage the tax money. We the people aren’t getting bailed out for our mis-management of our money so why does the government feel like we the people should bail them out when they mis-manage, as they’ve done for years.
If the Government starts going by the Constitution again, then they still get their tax money(indirectly) and we can actually live as free people again. It’s not that difficult but it’s hard for them to follow since most of the politicians are so corrupt, as were finding out now.
If anyone finds this flawed then please let me know. As for Girardacles, I’m not idiot, I just understand that our forefathers fought and died for these laws and I don’t like seeing them broken because of greed. They broke away from England to become free. I’m sure that they had the better idea of how a country should be run and we need to trust them. Our politicians today make decisions for personal benefits/gain and not for the people, as it’s clearly obvious. Either start trusting them(Forefathers) or move to England.
Someone please ban these rats: Joe, SimpleJustice, Zach… and other rats from the rat team…
They are polluting this website’s forums with loads and loads of useless and meaningless crap…
The pages and pages of nonsense, where they just type up some bs that is just garbage…
Please ban these rats: Joe, SimpleJustice, Zach… and other rats from the same rat team.
Thank you very much.
D. Dixon.
Someone please ban these rats: Joe, SimpleJustice, Zach… and other rats from the rat team…
They are polluting this website’s forums with loads and loads of useless and meaningless crap…
The pages and pages of nonsense, where they just type up some bs that is just garbage…
Please ban these rats: Joe, SimpleJustice, Zach… and other rats from the same rat team.
Thank you.
D. Dixon.
Sorry this annoys you for some reason, I’m glad I had these discussions on here though, I’ll stop posting.
Also, you should realize it’s not nonsense, you’re probably too stupid understand, so you criticize.
“#1. Milton Friedman is wrong about everything, look what he did to America and look what he did to Iceland. As far as the democrat and republican thing goes. This is what I was talking about when I brought up Jude Wanniski’s ‘Two Santa Clause Theory’. Democrats could spend, but they raise taxes. Now the Republicans could have the edge, because they could spend and cut taxes. So they did this, and they create this massive debt. The democrats come into office and can’t do anything ’cause they’re fixing their debt, we’ve had this pattern since 1980. Reagan accumulated more debt than every president before him combined, that’s the catch to all this. They said oh look Reagan brought us prosperity, no he just put the bill on the next generations to pay off. Supply kept rising, income never went up for the middle class, so demand did not rise with supply, and instead of fixing this.. for the first time in history the average american has a negative savings rate. Supply and demand stayed together for 200 years before the 1980s. Now the last 30 years they’re not, why? Because supply-side economics is a joke. ”
I don’t think you have ever read Milton Friedman as a matter of fact. It’s funny that you mention him specifically, yet seemingly have zero idea what he wrote. I would think if you wanted to point out someone on the extreme opposite end of how things are currently run, you would pick Mises. But no, you pick the guy who holds similar beliefs to Mises but offers both realistic and more importantly for you, politically neutral (i.e. a traditional Reblican or a new democrat could vote for his measures with a straight face)
“#2. You talk about the free market a lot. America is not, and never was a market economy. Nor is America a centrally-planned economy. America is, and always has been a mixed economy. A market economy is just as bad as a centrally-planned economy. Now, such a tiny percentage of people controlling the majority of the wealth is not just wrong morally, but it’s wrong economically. It doesn’t work in a democratic society, the only way left to go is to something similar to an aristocracy. Where we even see our voting machines privatized by a certain party, so where yes we vote, but it’s hardly even an election. Where we see no regard for health and safety in a workplace because it gets in the way of you’re right to make money in a business. See, you’re free to start a business in this country. But if you’re violating the rights of your workers and your consumers then you have no business doing business in this country.”
America was as close to a Free market as any society has ever been in this world outside of the black market for almost 100 years. (which has inflated prices due to low supply and heavy risk). Specifically this quote scares me:
“A market economy is just as bad as a centrally-planned economy.”
If what you first said was true then HOW DO YOU KNOW THIS AS FACT? We know a cetrally planned economy doesnt work. look at Russia. Look at how China has bloomed as a world power after opening up it’s markets.
A small percentage of people owning a majority of the market cannot be stopped unless you are living under a completely centrally planned government. As long as you give people any freedom of choice economically, certain people will rise to the top and others will sink to the bottom. your problem is that you think this is unfair. My problem with your way of thinking is that you do nothing to stop it. Noone who sits back and complains about big business owning everything does basically ANYTHING to stop it.
I have some simple questions for you. Do you own a car sir? Are you writing this stuff on your personal computer? Have you gone to McDonalds or Burger King in the past month? When was the last time you went to Wal-Mart? Do your shoes say Nike on them? What about Dr. Martin or Reebok? Maybe your phone is a Westinghouse. maybe you own a flat-screen TV from Panasonic.
You have already participated in the free market, you just don’t like where the money ends up in the end. The Free Market only works when people make companies pay where the company needs to pay: In their pockets.
You are unwittingly the worst type of consumer. One that is unhappy with the very structure with which you support. You either refuse to a) find a way to make more money so you can buy goods and services from companies that are not part of the “elite class” or b) refuse to have lower non-necessary items to build your own wealth. Likely both are true.
you quote Jefferson in saying:
“look to a single and splendid government of an aristocracy, founded on banking institutions, and money incorporations under the guise and cloak of their favored branches of manufactures, commerce and navigation, riding and ruling over the plundered ploughman and yeomanry. This will be to them a next best blessing to the monarchy of their first aim, and perhaps the surest steppingstone to it”
You and I (Along with Jefferson) see two completely different things with this. This is not a market economy he is speaking of. This is a central banking system where their lackey friends are the only businesses that are allowed to profit from it. We don’t even have close to that today or else people like Steve Jobs or Bill Gates would not exist.
“TAXES DO NOT TAKE AWAY YOUR ECONOMIC FREEDOM. This is not the government stealing from you. This is an agreement you have being an American. It’s the same as going in to a store and buying something, you pay money for a product or service. You’re tax money is going to services that are set up to help and protect you. Now if you think the police should work for free and that noone should make sure your food or water is safe then don’t pay your taxes. There’s nothing wrong with that. Be like Henry David Theoreau, he didn’t pay taxes because he didn’t believe in the Mexican war. Yes he went to jail for it, but he was doing what he believed was right: “Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.”
There is no legally binding contract to be an American. Noone naturally born as an American has to sign any document stating that they agree to to labor for the USA in return for goods and services.
specifically this quote intrigues me
“It’s the same as going in to a store and buying something, you pay money for a product or service. You’re tax money is going to services that are set up to help and protect you”
Taxation is nothing like this anymore. Just because you pay taxes doesnt necessarily mean that you are receiving services at the same rate as you would in the free market. Thats the exact reason taxes are so bad for the middle class. There is one simple truth about taxes in modern economies: the people who pay the taxes reap the least benefit from those taxes. i will never in my life visit some random ational Forest in Montana. Why am I paying money for it? I will never set foot in South Carolina again, why are my tax dollars going towards incentive programs to make their schools better? I personally won’t ever stoop so low as to receive a welfare check. Why am i paying for that? That’s what you are missing. And thats where your argument fails on such a grand scale. While it’s true that government helps pay for certain things that I do use or helps do things like protect me from physical harm, almost every single one of them is Constitutionally justified. This is most people.
“I happen to like the government protecting me from greedy corporations who only seek profits with total disregard to human life. Wish I didn’t have to pay for the war though…”
They sure have done a great job right? you do recognize that it took them NINE STRAIGHT YEARS OF DIRECT WARNINGS to catch someone as blatently obvious as Madoff right?
I cannot remember the source of this argument but I’ll give it anyways. You claim that corperations don’t care for human life and are greedy. Unfortunately for you, YOU are the greedy one. You want an unfair advantage over others simply because of your so called “lot in life” you are stuck in victimhood instead of being a rational person and performing the actions necessary to change it.
yes SOME corperations are greedy and go too far. Guess what, there are federal laws that can and should put those cretins in jail. These are not regulations or restrictions on Free Trade, they are simple Fraud laws that if applied correctly can be very effective.
There are very few modern corperations that “have a total disregard for human life” like you claim. This is a bad business model as it alienates their entire customer base. Likely you see one thing that a corperation does (for profits because….well thats what corperations are for, to increase the value to shareholders because without those shareholders making money the corperation goes bankrupt) that you disagree with and make a blanket statement about them, or their industry, or corperate America as a whole.
“And no, Americans do not have the best idea on what to spend their money on. They wont realize these services until they’re gone. Then when they get sick ’cause no one wants to write a check to get clean water they’ll wish they just paid taxes still. Then when their roads are crumbling and their hub assembly gets destroyed every year so you have to spend 500 bucks on that every time to get it fixed, theyll wish they just paid taxes still, this could go on forever. This would also be extremely unfair to people who are in the minority as far as having a certain illness or whatever. These people wont get proper help and funding then because the majority wont have money going towards it. Now you state other taxes could pay for all these services, no, impossible. A heavily progressive income tax system created the golden age of the middle class and the golden age of economics. Whether it’s constitutional or not, it’s in our own benefit to have it.”
Your argument topics:
Water: paid for by states
road repairs: some states already pay for them, I personally believe all states should
Research for illness cures: paid for by both private enterprise and not-for-profit organizations largely.
you need to come up with some stuff thats paid for almost exclusively by the Federal Government to make your point here.
“A heavily progressive income tax system created the golden age of the middle class and the golden age of economics. Whether it’s constitutional or not, it’s in our own benefit to have it”
Do you happen to know when the largest economic growth in America happened that wasnt directly caused by a Central Bank causing credit to become too cheap with artifically low interest rates? (and therefore causing either a Depression or Recession afterwards). After the Civil War. When we went back to a Gold Standard and had a much freer marketplace. you know what we did NOT have? a personal income Tax.
Can you honestly tell me I am better off working until Mid-to-late-April for the Federal Government?
Zach, your argument is very poor for the reason that you are assuming my social status and that is the lone persective i see things from. “Wise men learn by others’ harms, fools scarcely by their own.” -Benjamin Franklin
You repeatedly bring up nonsense points such as: I have never read Milton Friedman. How would you know that? I know where he stands, it is very clear where he stands. I’m a Keynesian. Does Milton Friedman not believe in supply-side economics? This new invention of the 1970s, never part of the fabric of classical economics in America.
Also, when was this 100 years that America was a free market? We have always been a MIXED economy, that’s just fact. Those that want a free market sacrifice equality for efficiency which can ultimately lead to aristocratic-like rule. Those that want a centrally-planned economy sacrifice efficiency for equality which does not end up in high enough standard of living etc.
As far as knowing a free market economy is as bad a centrally-planned economy. Look what the market economy did to Iceland, look what the market economy that last 30 years has done to America. Look what the market economy did to America in the ’20s. Yes China bloomed, they’re not exporting jobs and they enforce tariffs. Unlike America where companies get rewarded for laying off workers so the Chinese can do the work. They don’t have to pay tariffs! Pre 1980 if a company paid an employee 10$ per hour, but laid that person off to have a foreign worker do the job for 1$ per hour. That company would have to pay the difference of that in tariffs.
Now again, pre 1980 the average CEO made 30 times what the average worker made…Now the average CEO makes 275 times more what the average worker makes. That is what I’m talking about. They are not profiting through good business practices and ethics, they are profiting at the expense of their employees and consumers. There should be no limit on how rich you could get of course, but you shouldn’t be allowed to make a penny through violated workers or consumers rights, which is what the Majority of companies do, not all.
Another extremely ignorant point of yours. That I am the greedy one. Large companies, especially the pharmaceutical industry, spends billions of dollars fighting off regulations and other health standards. Just like they fought off seatbelts and airbags in the ’70s cause it got in their free market right to profit. So lets get this straight…I’m greedy for asking for safe products…I’m greedy because I believe workers deserve living wages rather than starvation wages and if you can’t afford to pay your employees living wages then you’re not running a good enough business. And #1: it’s not hard to fix, it’s called the employee free choice act for starters.
Once again, you assume something. That I am the worst type of consumer. Why would I support the structure that parted from the classical economics that America followed for two centuries under Alexander Hamiltons ‘Report on Manufactures’? It is wrong that Americans are losing jobs to foreign countries. Now they say it will make prices lower. Well what’s cheap? Look around you, nothing around you is made in America, yet everything around you is still expensive. So where’d all the money that those businesses made from laying off Americans? The answer: THE TOP. Ronald Reagan documented this perfectly when he was a democrat, before he married the daughter of a rich republican.> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJDhS4oUm0M
So I do not support this, but what can I do? I buy American and organic foods when it’s there. I’m doing pretty well with concerns to money, thank you. I just want there to be more people able to achieve the American dream.
So I guess I will make an assumption about you. You are the worst type of American. One who wouldn’t pay taxes for our nature and environment ’cause you’ll never visit the place. That’s ridiculous. This is what’s wrong with people, it’s all about yourself and even someone else is struggling it’s not the systems fault, its their personal fault. I can realize this without being a victim. I guess you’re not one of the wise men Ben Franklin wrote about. And so say you have a wife and 3 kids and what was thought of a secure job, the job you’ve been trained to do and you’ve been doing for 25 years. You get laid off, you have children to feed, a home to pay for, kids to send to school, debt to pay. You don’t accept a welfare check? What are you gonna do? You can’t get a job today. This is the problem, you think people don’t want to work. People do want to work! You are anti-democratic.
And with taxes, sheez. Yes, water: paid for by states..road repairs: paid for by states..where do the states get their money? taxes. It all goes to the federal government and then its sorted back out to the states. For example, every state that went for john mccain(texas the exception) gets more money back from the federal government than goes in. While all us socialist states actually lose revenue to give to those states.
And are you talking about the Gilded Age. The only good thing that came out of that was labor unions because people were sick of being the working poor. Doing hard labor for nothing.
The great American middle class was created from the ‘1940s-’70s. This is the era that built modern America. Where effiency and equality were balanced. Do you know what we did have? a personal income tax.
If people who made over 3.2 million dollars a year today, if every thing over that was taxed at 75% that would solve our problems, like we had pre 1980. Then these big shots will leave their money in their company rather than getting it taxed, stimulating the economy(by increasing wages of their employees). Giving them tax cuts is no reason to hire workers. They pocket that money. Demand is what decides whether you need to cut or create jobs.
“Look at how China has bloomed as a world power after opening up it’s markets.”
So Zach, you are admitting a socially repressed, centrally planned economy can bloom? If so, why are we worrying about democracy or absolutely free markets? I find it contradicting you offer up CHINA (of all places) as an example of how free markets succeed – they are a centrally planned economy after all…
So the United States is largely ‘Communist/Socialist’ and China is ‘Free Market’ oriented? What world do you live on?
China manipulates its currency. They also have a high savings rate because of their trade surplus..
Yep, the point I was trying to make is that in NO WAY is China what a Ron-Paul’er would call a ‘free market economy’ and yet it is cited as a success of ‘free markets’ and is currently ‘blooming’… While other FAR MORE free-market-oriented economies went in the tank (across a variety of central bank activity and philosophies – please don’t cite just the rote Fed/ECB/BBS response).
Maybe there is something to this ‘centrally planned and mixed economy’ thing?
too bad men like Milton Friedman are right on most things. My major problem with him is that he believes a Federal Reserve banking system can work which I believe is morally corrupt.
Economic Freedom is every bit as important to you and your lifestyle as any other freedom you can imagine. arguably it’s more important for more people than any other freedom. Taxes directly contradict this. They take your labor and put it to work for the government not for you as an individual.
My guess is that you are a democrat and have fallen into the trap. Me and a friend at work have been playing this little game at work where we act as democrats. It’s suprisingly easy. Whenever anyone brings up any subject we come up with the first “most humanitarian” thing that comes to our heads and blurt it out. usually it’s the democrats stance on the subject.
Guns? Guns are bad, they hurt people we should ban them.
See how that works? The problem with the game is that when people start doing things like asking questions, the game breaks down. Usually the conversation has to end when anyone simply asks the question (not necessarily on guns of course) how it’s going to be realistically paid for.
Here’s the problem you likely have with the tax issue. You see all of these things you believe the Federal government should be involved in and wonder where the money is going to come from (let’s disregard the federal reserves role for this discussion because realistically the government doesnt have to tax anyone as long as that garbage is around). The stance of a Ron Paul supporter is that you don’t need the income tax IF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT WAS BROUGHT DOWN TO IT’S CONSTITUTIONAL LEVEL. you want to lump us in with Republicans, but current Republicans are just as bad as democrats are with spending. Like i said previously, they just shift where the money goes to.
Of course having 1% of the population control such a large portion of the wealth is “supposedly” a bad thing (I say supposedly because you cannot put a number on how fair a percentage of wealth the top 1% control in anything resembling a free market). But you’re thought process is more than likely that this is a failing of the free market. It’s not. It’s what happens when the current crop of neo-conservative “Republicans” take office and attempt to shift from individual welfare to corperate welfare. when a Democrat takes over the paradigm shifts to individual welfare from corperate welfare. Neither is good.
It’s not fair if a certain business get’s a leg up from government. On the same token it invalidates others hard work when individuals receive a leg up from the government. Neither has a place in our society ultimately. and neither would happen if we had both an actual free market and a federal government living within it’s constitutional authority. unfortunately neither is currently correct.
#1. Milton Friedman is wrong about everything, look what he did to America and look what he did to Iceland. As far as the democrat and republican thing goes. This is what I was talking about when I brought up Jude Wanniski’s ‘Two Santa Clause Theory’. Democrats could spend, but they raise taxes. Now the Republicans could have the edge, because they could spend and cut taxes. So they did this, and they create this massive debt. The democrats come into office and can’t do anything ’cause they’re fixing their debt, we’ve had this pattern since 1980. Reagan accumulated more debt than every president before him combined, that’s the catch to all this. They said oh look Reagan brought us prosperity, no he just put the bill on the next generations to pay off. Supply kept rising, income never went up for the middle class, so demand did not rise with supply, and instead of fixing this.. for the first time in history the average american has a negative savings rate. Supply and demand stayed together for 200 years before the 1980s. Now the last 30 years they’re not, why? Because supply-side economics is a joke.
#2. You talk about the free market a lot. America is not, and never was a market economy. Nor is America a centrally-planned economy. America is, and always has been a mixed economy. A market economy is just as bad as a centrally-planned economy. Now, such a tiny percentage of people controlling the majority of the wealth is not just wrong morally, but it’s wrong economically. It doesn’t work in a democratic society, the only way left to go is to something similar to an aristocracy. Where we even see our voting machines privatized by a certain party, so where yes we vote, but it’s hardly even an election. Where we see no regard for health and safety in a workplace because it gets in the way of you’re right to make money in a business. See, you’re free to start a business in this country. But if you’re violating the rights of your workers and your consumers then you have no business doing business in this country. Now really read this quote by Thomas Jefferson:
“look to a single and splendid government of an aristocracy, founded on banking institutions, and money incorporations under the guise and cloak of their favored branches of manufactures, commerce and navigation, riding and ruling over the plundered ploughman and yeomanry. This will be to them a next best blessing to the monarchy of their first aim, and perhaps the surest steppingstone to it”
Is this not what I’m talking about?
TAXES DO NOT TAKE AWAY YOUR ECONOMIC FREEDOM. This is not the government stealing from you. This is an agreement you have being an American. It’s the same as going in to a store and buying something, you pay money for a product or service. You’re tax money is going to services that are set up to help and protect you. Now if you think the police should work for free and that noone should make sure your food or water is safe then don’t pay your taxes. There’s nothing wrong with that. Be like Henry David Theoreau, he didn’t pay taxes because he didn’t believe in the Mexican war. Yes he went to jail for it, but he was doing what he believed was right: “Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.”
I happen to like the government protecting me from greedy corporations who only seek profits with total disregard to human life. Wish I didn’t have to pay for the war though…
And no, Americans do not have the best idea on what to spend their money on. They wont realize these services until they’re gone. Then when they get sick ’cause no one wants to write a check to get clean water they’ll wish they just paid taxes still. Then when their roads are crumbling and their hub assembly gets destroyed every year so you have to spend 500 bucks on that every time to get it fixed, theyll wish they just paid taxes still, this could go on forever. This would also be extremely unfair to people who are in the minority as far as having a certain illness or whatever. These people wont get proper help and funding then because the majority wont have money going towards it. Now you state other taxes could pay for all these services, no, impossible. A heavily progressive income tax system created the golden age of the middle class and the golden age of economics. Whether it’s constitutional or not, it’s in our own benefit to have it.
Zach,
#1. I never once said communism is a good thing. I know it doesn’t work. My point is that we are nowhere near a communist society and America will never be a communist society, it’s ridiculous to even think that. So what I’m saying is we should be afraid of returning to what has been the natural society for thousands of years which is a rich few controlling the many poor. You obviously didn’t read my other posts. Some say we’re already living in a plutocracy, and it really does seem like we are when so much wealth is concentrated in the top 1% and there’s such a large percentage of people sharing such a small portion of wealth.
#2. The people that wish to achieve this plutocracy use communism as a tool to support their desires. They make anything that doesn’t fit their agenda sound communist and that we should be afriad of it. I think you should do some serious reading up on history and our founding fathers so you can realize that this is a new breed of people. As I wrote, these peoples founding fathers are Milton Friedman, Jude Wanniski, etc. They have no connection to the beliefs our founding fathers at all. Before the 1970s these people were referred to as Texas oil millionaires as Republican President Dwight Eisenhower wrote:
“Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”
^That’s the whole Republican party today.
Careful what you say… Obama is quickly showing his neo-Marxist side and the only way to go from neo-Marxism is communism.
What a stupid thing to say. Obama is further Right than Republicans Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower. So out of curiosity, what policies of his are neo-Marxist?
I doubt Nathan hasn’t read anything written by karl marx so he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Obama said he was well trained as a community organizer, taking care of poor communities. Now he is making communities poor.
“I don’t know why we’re so afraid of communism”
probably has something to do with a couple of facts about Communism:
1) It does not work when human beings are controlling it. At no point in the history of the world has a communist (or similar) government system actually held their constiuancies standard of living higher than in a Free market economy.
2) The People running it talk a good talk but do the same thing American leaders are doing today. Give preference to certain business or countries dispite the best interest of their people, for their own personal benefit.
3) It’s morally bankrupt. It completely removes free choice from individuals and gives it to a group of people who “know what’s best”. Communism at it’s core is a form of government based on slavery. Only in Communisms case the master isnt a single person who owns you, it’s a government entity who decides the core facits of your life. Thy decide where you live. What job you have. In China (for instance) how many children you have. How that system of government isnt morally unjustifyable is beyond me.
More on topic: Americans have been swindled. They have allowed their government to to start making their choices for them. The only difference between one administration and the next is where those funds go to. It currently doesnt matter who you elect to what office. The money gets spent either way. Elect a “Repulican” and money is spent on crap like Iraq or oil. Elect a “democrat” and it’s spent on “clean energy” and schools. Electing one person over another only shifts the money from one place to another. This is why there is no such thing as a Republican or Democrat. They are all simply Republicrats.
The income tax is at the center of this (along with the federal reserve). Really, honestly, who has a better idea of what you want to spend money on than you? Why are people so quick to give up their freedom of choice to a bunch of people who have never met them before?
I see a lot of misconceptions about where our money goes as well. “Oh you don’t want an income tax, you are against education then!” Well……no…..schools are paid for with property taxes.
“You want the roads to break down!” Well…..no……states can legally charge tolls for their roads and fix them.
On the other hand the DoEducation is a completely redundant department, performs no useful function, and costs Billions of dollars a year. Why are we paying for something like that? In hopes that our schools get better? Has anyone else noticed our schools have actually done nothing but get worse since the DoEducation’s inception?
The three largest expenditures of the federal government are Medicare/Medicaid (which wastes more money in administration than it uses to actually help people that are part of their programs), Social Security (THE defintion of a Ponzy scheme) and foriegn expenditures (mostly military).
But Jeff… What do you believe needs to happen in America?
I think that the government issuing its own currency that we would not have to pay interest on would be a good start. Abe Lincoln did it, and so did John Kennedy; it is not really partisan issue.
Interesting read, I’m not sure that’s where it’s at though.
Our founding fathers figured it out, that’s what America is all about. It just so happens that, for as long as we’ve been a country, there have been people trying to turn our democracy into a plutocracy. There have been periods in our history where these people have come very close to succeeding. For example, the Robber Baron era, the Roaring ’20s and most recently since the 1980s thanks to Milton Friedman, Jude Wanniski, Grover Norquist, Joseph Coors, Arthur Laffer and their devolopments of the Two Santa Clause Theory, the Laffer Curve, and supply-side economics which split from the economic principles that built America for 200 years. We’ve forgotten about Alexander Hamilton’s ‘Report On Manufactures’, we’ve forgotten that America was a collection of the working poor of Europe, we’ve forgotten that America was a new experiment that relied on what our founding fathers called a ‘yeomanry’(middle class). We didn’t forget this stuff on accident though, this is what these people want. They want us to forget our own history, they want us to believe that they have the founding fathers on their side, they want us to be uneducated. So in reality, this is not hard to solve. We just need to return to the America that preceded the 1980’s. We’ve had it figured out through most of our history and we were doing great until Reagan.
I don’t know why we’re so afraid of communism when we’re one step away to returning what Americans were once escaping.
“He is arrived on a new continent; a modern society offers itself to his contemplation, different from what he had hitherto seen. It is not composed, as in Europe, of great lords who possess evyerthing and of a herd of people who have nothing. Here are no aristocratical families, no courts, no kings, no bishops, no ecclesiastical dominion, no invisible power giving to a few a very visible one, no great manufactures employing thousands, no great refinements of luxury. The rich and the poor are not so far removed from each other as they are in Europe.” -J. Hector St. John De Crevecoeur
In the 1920s we seen the largest income gap between the rich and the poor in US history, what proceeded that? Now, we have seen the largest income gap between the rich and the poor since the Great Depression, what’s happening now?
You seem to be pretty knowledgeable about these matters, so I hope that you don’t take my suggesting this web site as an insult. This author breaks the money myth down to it’s simplest form. Although the story is not perfect, it does demonstrate how the problems in society today are beyond either party’s ability to be solved. Our politicians treat the symptoms and ignore the cause.http://www.larryhannigan.com/TheEarthPlus5.htm
Joe, I wasn’t saying that a progressive tax caused the depression; I was responding to your comment that not having a heavy progressive tax system leads to a depression. Also, since Hoover was only in office for seven months before the stock market crashed, the depression can hardly be blamed on his lowering of the top marginal rate. As for regulation, if you look at the numbers, using all indicators, regulation has been steadily increasing over the last twenty years. It dropped some under Reagan, but has increased and surpassed the rates that were in place at the end of the Carter administration by a large margin. Bad economic policies are not exclusive to either party. For that matter, bad policies in general are not exclusive to either party. I believe that this focus on partisanship is a distraction and is slowly destroying our freedom. That is why I have become a Ron Paul supporter. If you read his manifesto, you would see that his ideas are as liberal as they are conservative. There is a reasonable third way that we are not being given the opportunity to vote upon because the two reigning parties are stocked with bureaucrats whose loyalties are to themselves and getting re-elected. I believe that much of this republican vs. democrat rivalry is a façade. For example, have you noticed how those two archrivals, Bush 41 and Bill Clinton, have become the chummiest of pals, and they make speaking appearances together cracking jokes like some kind of comedy team? They both serve the same masters.
As far as Hoover goes, my mistake, harding and coolidge first cut the top rate and eventually got it down to 25%. Years of deregulation and free market fundamentalism preceded the great depression. It’s a bubble economy, we seen it then, we’re seeing it now. And I still completely disagree with you about regulation in the past few decades. I do somewhat agree with you about the two parties though. I guess you’ve chosen Ron Paul and I’ve chosen senator Bernie Sanders. I had to look up what Ron Paul believed in because I’m surprised by how many people worship this guy. And I truly believe his policies would destroy the middle class, which is essential to a democracy. If you don’t know much about Bernie you should look at some of what he has to say.
“I am not among those who fear the people. They, and not the rich, are our dependence for continued freedom. … We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. … [Otherwise], as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, … and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they now do, on oatmeal and potatoes; have no time to think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account; but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow sufferers.” -Thomas Jefferson
that’s as true today as it was then…
I say get rid of employment tax.
Think of the millions we americans would save getting rid of the irs,Starting with all the trees we would save not haveing to print billions of sheets of paper for are tax returns all the office supplies,heating bills lease of buildings,security for the federal buildings etc.this list goes on and on.
But in the end us small bussiness owners and employees if we have a flat tax at the end of the day we know what we made and have left we could actually put into saveings or invest and we could have a way less stressfull life and the would not be a different standard between the rich and the poor we would all pay the same we would all be equal for a change
“Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation
below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression
as they rise.” -Thomas Jefferson.
This statement actually shows what great wisdom Jefferson had. He realized that a large number of individuals fighting to maintain a
basic existence did’nt need an extra burden of excess taxes on their back. Otherwise what was the revolution all about anyway, to
replace one king with another in the form of federal gov..
For the taxation system to be fair, it needs to be the same for all. Progressive or otherwise. Wealthy people don’t pay income taxes
on their utilities bill, food , rent, etc.., yet low wage earners do by default as this is all they’re earning. God forbid they might actually
buy anything else, or save money. Taxes need to be related to the increase of wealth, progressively. Minimum wage earners and others below
a certain fixed standard of living should pay zero income taxes. Anything made above that point might be taxed at one rate.Zero deductions!
Everyone should recieve the same standard cost of living deduction be they rich or poor. Everyone should pay the same standard rate over certain amounts
only on that part over the ‘ equal for all ‘ standard cost of living deduction, not on the whole. Other graduated levels could occur at higher wealth values
with the previous values being deducted from the increased taxable value. Such that anything someone might make over 100,000 would be taxed at one
rate, and anything they made below that rate would be taxed at another , while still including the standard cost of living deduction of say 30,000 to 50,000.
No deductions! That would be fair to all, everyone recieves the same deduction, and pays the same rates.
Also productivity would’nt be stifled by jumping someone into another tax bracket because they made another thosand dollars this year, or a
million. But really don’t NFL players making hundreds of millions for playing a game, do they not need to pay for that excess. Albeit fairly.
And if you’re worried about the little people not contributing, look at all the other taxes , fees, and charges in place. Sales tax, property taxes,
gas taxes, tobacco taxes etc. etc.. Is there anything not taxed.
End useless foreign wars, reduce government spending, and control corporate greed.
Help the people at the bottom not at the top.
I only want one thing cleared up, and that is where Dr. Paul stands on Free Trade and Tariffs. I myself happen to be an advocate of tariffs of goods imported to the United States. I think Free Trade does not help anyone but big corporate names at WalMart. Tariffs of imported goods should be high enough that American manufacturers have a leg up on the competition when it comes to prices, and that foreign goods should be let into the U.S. when the U.S. is also selling goods in the country of that product’s origin.
and also, im pretty sure if you read all of thomas jeffersons letters you wouldn’t like him no more. youd probably call him a socialist or somethin
I’m glad you wrote that Jeff. We’ve had 30 years of deregulation since Reagan took office. Any economist not on FOX news will tell you that.
What caused the Great Depression wasnt having a progressive tax system…It was that it wasn’t progressive enough. Hoover lowered the top marginal rate from around 75% to around 25%. What do you know, you get a bubble and a bust. Then from FDR to Carter we had at least a 75% top marginal rate, Reagan lowered it and its been low since and we may be seeing the second republican great depression. So it’s not having a heavy progressive tax system that’s helped cause this.
If what you were saying is true…America would not have done so good from the ’40s-’70s when he had such a heavily progressive tax system. Come to think about it, I can’t think of a time America did well without a heavily progressive tax system.
Just curious as to why there was not a depression in the first 300 years of the U.S. of A.’s existance and why it all of a sudden spurred up in the early 1900’s…. Inflation/deflation doesnt work with a monetary system that has no backing. As the days progress and things worsen my faith in the government dwindles along with many other peoples’. Its time to research your history and rediscover what our founding fathers fought against to make the country what it was. Theres a reason President Andrew Jackson’s headstone reads “I Killed the Bank” maybe its time that reason is made more widely known.
“The [privately-owned] Central Bank is an institution of the most deadly hostility existing against the principles and form of our Constitution… if the American people allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations
that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.” – President Andrew Jackson
Either these men were genius’ or they actually knew what they were doing. Maybe todays generation should follow their lead.
Current banking enterprises (the federal reserve) are leaches on society. They produce nothing and charge principle plus interest on that nothing which puts the entire nation in a downward spiral of debt. This debt is managed through inflation and deflation. Does this seem fair? Now think of your money, it doesnt represent wealth it represents and tremendous amount of debt, our national debt. Its time to move from our IOU’s to a gold/silver backed currency and give control back to the people.
Government for the people by the people not government to rule the people!
Obviously Nathan you don’t know your history. There was the “Depression of 1807″ that lasted for 7 years. “Panic of 1819″ that lasted for 5 years. “Panic of 1837″ lasted for 6 years. “Panic of 1873″ lasted for 6 years. The “Long Depression” that lasted from 1873-1896. Then finally, the “Great Depression”.
So let me put this to you differently. There was not one crash in the ’30s, ’40s, ’50s, ’60s, or ’70s. There were two in the ’80s and now obviously that bubble really popped for good this time. Why from the ’30s-’70s was there no crash? Because there was REAL GROWTH. There wasn’t this inflated fake growth where the bottom falls out, like we seen ’20s and we’re seeing now. How do you get real growth? You can start by raising the top marginal rate to at least 75% like it was over that time period. In fact 20 of those years saw a top marginal rate above 90%.
You like to talk about debt. Ronald Reagan, most likely your hero, turned America from the largest creditor nation in the entire world, into the largest debtor nation in the entire world. In the matter of eight years he did this. In eight years he accumulated more debt, adjusted for inflation, than every president before him in history combined.
This is a result of the far-right’s Jude Wanniskis “Two-Santa Clause Theory” and the far-right’s Grover Norquist “Starve the Beast”. Democrats were the Santa Clause because they would spend, but they would also raise taxes. Jude said that the Republicans could spend and cut taxes because tax cuts pay for themselves. So they had an edge, and it appeared as if it was working. But what was hiding in the background was the enormous debt they were compiling.
As far as your faith in government. For the last 30 years our government has been run by people who don’t believe in government. This is not a democracy, we do not have say in our government. This is a plutocracy, only big business has a say in our policies. And you want to hand even more power over to huge corporations.
One more thing, you meantioned our founding fathers. Yes let’s get back to the economic system they created called the “American System”. The system America used as a nation since Alexander Hamilton wrote his ‘Report on Manufactures’ in 1791 all the way until 1980. The system our founding fathers created so we wouldn’t have to rely on the “FREE TRADE, LAISSEZ-FAIRE BRITISH SYSTEM.”
The panic of 1819 was caused by government changing policy on bank reserves, I bet if I look into the others I’ll find the same invisible hand.
No, you are wrong. The Panic of 1819 was the first time America experienced the result of the market economy. It’s the boom-bust cycle of laissez-faire capitalism. When the wage-productivity gap increases too much, it will cause a depression.
A largest influence on the “panic of 1819″ was the war of 1812. Wars cost money for both sides of the conflict. On our side (USA), the federal government did allow (turned a blind eye) for changes in banking policy. Businesses and people alike ultimately had an adverse reaction to the policy which contributed to the panic. Also, the British had a change in their gold standard after the war of 1812 which had a negative effect on USA economy.
I agree with you Joe that some government regulation to insure public safety is a good thing, but too much of a good thing can also have a down side. Right now we are experiencing the deleterious effects of too much government regulation. Furthermore, we are not advocating abolishment of all taxes; the problem is that a graduated income tax is immoral. The great depression occured after the progressive tax was instituted. We are entering a huge recession right now, and yet, we have a graduated income tax. I’m curious about that quote from Thomas Jefferson. Was he advocating a progressive tax, or just speaking on the matter. Either way, for all of his great achievements, he is allowed to occasionally utter a stupid remark.
Thomas Jefferson may have been right. Maybe that is an acceptable means of lessening the inequalities of property. If such is true, debate it in Congress and Amend the Constitution legally. See my posts above regarding the 16th Amendment. Taxation on income may be the way to go. But, it currently is not legal according to the Constitution of the United States.
I was merely referring to the line… “Tellingly, ‘a heavy progressive or graduated income tax’ is Plank #2 of the Communist Manifesto”. Just because you support a heavy progressive income tax does not mean you are supporting a path to communism. America has flourished the best under years in which we had a heavy progressive tax system(1940s-1970s). What this does is encourages business owners to keep money in their business. They don’t want all their money taxed so they invest in their own business. They train their employees better, they increase employees wages(increasing demand), they become innovative, they grow their business.
Not having a heavy progressive tax system has always lead to a depression and can ultimately destroy a democratic society.
Um, wasn’t Jefferson speaking of land?
Keep On Spinning
Also, those of you that don’t want to pay taxes. That’s like going to a store and taking a product without paying for it. We pay taxes for the good of our fellow Americans. We want clean water, don’t we? We want uncontaminated food, don’t we? We want police protection, don’t we? We want roads to get us places, don’t we? We want to preserve our nature, don’t we? This don’t come free.
I also like the fact that the government protects the citizen from the business. It’s government that makes sure the cars we drive are safe. Otherwise, carmakers don’t have to put seatbelts or airbags in cars. Otherwise, cars don’t have to meet safety standards. All because it disrupts the free market and interferes on a business’ right to make money. The same people fighting seatbelts and airbags in cars thirty years ago are the same people fighting how to dispose of harmful materials at plants today. It costs a lot of money to safefully dispose of chemicals, so they don’t harm people or nature. I’m sure you all want to work in a safe and healthy working environment where there aren’t carcinogens such as Asbestos. It’s the government that is protecting you from these businesses. Corporations spend billions of dollars fighting these regulations that keep you safe, I wonder why…
None of this is socialism, it’s democracy. If we don’t do this, we’ll be living in what is very similar to a plutocracy. Where our wages are not of importance, where our health is not of importance, where we are serfs.
All small government means is less protection from the corporations that want to pay you as little as possible, charge you as much as possible, and don’t give a damn about your health.
It’s not about taking away a business’ right to make money. It’s about protecting the consumer and the worker from that business taking advantage of you for means of profit. All we’re saying is you can start a business and make millions of dollars, but you’re not going to make a cent at the expense of another human being. It’s not government interference, it’s government protection.
“In this great American asylum, the poor of Europe have by some means met together, and in consequence of various causes; to what purpose should they ask one another what countrymen they are? Alas, two thirds of them had no country. Can a wretch who wanders about, who works and starves, whose life is a continual scene of sore affliction or pinching penury—can that man call England or any other kingdom his country? A country that has no bread for him, whose fields procured him no harvest, who met with nothing but the frowns of the rich, the severity of the laws, with jails and punishments, who owned not a single foot of the extensive surface of this planet? No!” -J. Hector St. John De Crevecoeur
Stop worrying about taxes and start worrying about how much you’re getting paid. Wages drive demand. Demand drives an economy.
“All we’re saying is you can start a business and make millions of dollars, but you’re not going to make a cent at the expense of another human being.”
No, what you are really saying is that other human beings are going to make plenty of cents at the the expense of those that pay taxes. How do you justify that?
At what point would you say we should not be taxed any more?
50%, 75%, 99%… Heck, by this logic, just give them all the money and we should really be safe and protected.
What kills me is that all these people saying income tax is okay all take friggin tax write-offs. As actions speak louder than words this says it all about their true belief. So if you don’t take any tax write-offs at all and voluntarily pay extra taxes at least you believe in what you say. Regardless of that, don’t expect others to pay through the nose for a crappy return on investment.
Joe, I trully appreciate your passionate debate, you have clearly spent some time contemplating these issues and have arrived at distinctly different conclusions than others on this baord. The free exchange of ideas is a powerful tool.
I would never expect not to pay taxes. Government costs money and regulation of certain public safety and maintenance of a free market system with solid standards of commerce is vital.
What I do not embrace is being compelled into taxation on the foundation of my very productivity (income). Service fees, interstate commerce tariffs, import tariffs, property taxes, special product fees for products needing heightened regulation and supervision, excise taxes, road tolls, usage fees and perhaps even corporate earnings taxes can all be utilized in a system designed to produce government revenue at service and transaction points OF MY CHOOSING.
Will I choose to pay a tax, of course I will, when the tax is levied on something that I desire, need or choose to use, consume or engage.
Government is necessary and a fairly regualted free market is vital to a free society. I just choose to think in terms of a system that was conceived in the ideal (the U.S. Constitution). For you, this might involve thinking “outside the box”, but that’s OK. Might even be fun.
No tax on human labor, and no tax on land or house used as a personal residence.
Watch a BOOM economy follow.
Money was someone else’s “idea” of controlling society, for the creation of the ego “haves” who maniuplate and control the have nots. I think we are ready to grow as a society beyond that. It can’t be any more clear than in today’s economy and the numerous issues with have. We can see how the lack of money or the abundance of money prevents us from having a society where all people are truly free and have their needs met, are valued and not exteriorly controlled. Obtaining money has replaced an honorable incentive to go good in the world. The elite have perverted the “having of money” into the destruction of others.
I’m for working on the “idea” of having a society that does not function on money, a money-less society and a truly free market, free in that nothing is “paid” for, not labor or goods. I can think of numerous things that would change for the better in such a society, worldwide. I believe it would help us develop the human species to a higher level of living. We’d have to look at ourselves and the world in a whole new way. It takes effort to create something that does not already exist, and I mean something that is not just modifying what we already have (i.e. taxes, income).
Money is just someone’s idea. The FED prints it and we have to agree that it means the same thing to us as it does to them for this idea of money to work. If we didn’t agree, we wouldn’t find it valuable. they would be just scraps of useless paper. Since it is printed out of thin air anyway, and they make the rules surrounding money, then we are sheople following their rules. They use money to control people. We are following their rules of control. If we all decided that we’d rather have a society without money, then what they use to control us will have lost it’s power over us. See?
We have a tendency to not use the full capacity of our creative abilities. We can imagine and then create what we imagine. If the elite can, then so can we. We can have creative think tanks or online communities that explore the possibilities of creating a world that is minus all the things that don’t work well and institute things that do, in a money-free society. “Control over” the world cannot be the goal. It never works out well for humanity if power and control are given to a few dimented egomaniacs. However, a society that values and honors ourselves as a whole and individually, that could develop, advance, prosper and endure. It would be attractive to the most of the people. The ones who would find it difficult are those who are still attached to the FED’s “idea of money”.
You can put “a society without money” in google and see that others are already contemplating this idea.
FMR, it’s a shame that you and many others like you believe that you have the U.S. constitution on your side.
As Franklin Roosevelt once said, “These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power. Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power. In vain they seek to hide behind the flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget what the flag and the Constitution stand for. Now, as always, they stand for democracy, not tyranny; for freedom, not subjection; and against a dictatorship by mob rule and the over-privileged alike.”
Joe, are you really quoting FDR in the context of the constitutionality of the income tax on this board?
FDR had absolutely zero concern for the constraints of the constitution and some might say that history indicates he actually had a disdain for its very spirit and purpose.
Why is thinking outside the status quo and in the context of limited government so threatening to you? Have a little faith in humanity, the government does not innately represent the common good, like any complex organization, unrestrained it exists first and foremost to preserve and expand its own power and control.
Trully free men and women enacting the liberty which is an inherent right of all people will live fulfilling and productive lives for the benefit of themselves and their communities. Beyond restaining itself to protect this liberty, the central government can do very little to improve the lives of people on the local level. Have a little faith, and don’t quote FDR here of all places.
FMR,
Believe it or not, I understand that our freedoms can be taken away by government. But even though you believe it’s impossible for our rights to be taken away from fellow human beings, it is actually possible. In these cases, we need the government to step up and protect us. As James Monroe once said, “The best form of government is that which is most likely to prevent the greatest sum of evil.” And even though you said to not quote FDR, since he saved the capitalism you boast of, I will quote him again, “The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it comes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism – ownership of government by an individual, by a group.”
Laws need to be in place so that our freedoms are not taken away by other individuals. For example, the law that I have to wear a seatbelt is unjust. Me not wearing that seatbelt takes no freedom away from another human being. A just law is that it is illegal to drive drunk. Me driving drunk takes away the freedoms of other drivers on the road. However, the libertarian perspective is that government is taking away the right of that person to do whatever they want, which would be to drink and drive. What libertarians seemingly forget is that by the government staying out of the way, the other drivers’ freedoms are being taken away by the drunk driver. Therefore, we need the government to protect our rights.
I suggest you look back at U.S. history since the 1920’s and you can tell me what worked better, the market economy of the ’20s, ’80s-’00s or the mixed economy of the ‘30-’70s.
“Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise.” -Thomas Jefferson.
Wow, who knew that our founding fathers were communists?
Dearest Gerardacles, I have noticed that on many blogs of lesser caliber, rather than keeping a discussion confined to the realm of ideas, dissenters tend to hide behind their anonymity and hurl insults. This site is meant for the informed discussion of important issues. If you cannot stomach intelligent debate, might I suggest that you consider watching “The View?”
Girardacles:
Since you first responded to my post, I must apologize to you directly for taking so long to respond. These crazy “Holidays” get us all out of our routines.
In my original post, I stated the 16th Amendment was not ratified. The Amendment was declared “In effect”, but it still has not been properly ratified. The following states have not ratified the amendment according to the constitutional requirements:
Connecticut
Florida
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
Utah
Virginia
The states listed above did not ratify the amendment and reported the amendment not ratified at the time of the amendment being declared “in effect”.
Kentucky
Tennessee
Wyoming
The states listed above never ratified the amendment in a constitutional manner, but they reported it as amended.
Delaware
Michigan
Nevada
New Hampshire
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Vermont
Wyoming
The above states are missing critical evidence that the amendment was ratified, although they do report it as ratified.
Idaho
Iowa
Kentucky
Minnesota
Missouri
Washington
The above states do not have an official signature by the Governor approving ratification, which is required by the constitution.
Also of note, several other states approved the amendment, but with changes to the wording. An official acknowledgement of the conditions was never met. Therefore, several states are still awaiting an official Federal response to their conditions.
Girardacles:
The 16th has not been properly ratified. If it has, and if income tax is a legal taxation, then please give the board the same amount of time I have given to prove it so. Please do not copy and paste links. Please do not call me names. Please just give the same time and research. Show me where I am wrong.
Is the 16th properly ratified?
Thank you for your time and consideration of this post.
Jeremy
I would be completely happy with not paying federal income tax. Not only do I not see where my money goes nationally, I also don’t get to invest that money for my family’s future. An investment I SHOULD be able to make at my descretion since social security is a Ponzi scheme by definition.
I shouldn’t have to pay the government to pay private companies to wage wars. I shouldn’t have to pay the government to bail out terrible businesses and business men that can’t do their job well. I don’t get bailed out if I do a bad job.
Why pay billions in bail outs to companies with unsuccessful business models when our bridges need repaired and our teachers need better training and resources.
Give me my money. If not, then use it to make the standard of living for my family and my neibhors better.
Girardacles: in fact, the Supreme Court, in Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Company (1895) ruled that income tax was, in fact, unconstitutional. The 16 amendment, in fact, was NOT meant to clarify but instead overruled Pollock. You are correct in your assertion that the Constitution gives the power to tax, but not on general income, and, moreover, the Federal Government is restrained to taxing interstate or international commerce.
There are cases upon cases upon cases after 1915-16 showing that taxes are legal. NO case since then has showed the taxes are unconstitutional. As far as “anti-growth progressive tax” you should compare our constitution with Massachusett’s constitution that prohibits progressive taxes outright, which is NOT what the federal constitution says.
If you want to argue against taxes as a moral argument then do that, but if you’re trying to make a legal one then you’re out of luck. Anybody with any kind of legal education (I don’t even mean a JD or paralegal, but 1 research and reasoning course) knows that when you have case after case saying that a certain legal issue (federal tax) is legal, then you can’t say it isn’t without proving all those other rulings (there’s a lot of them) with 1 major case or a series of cases. So far, NO luck.
Ron Paul is a demagogue riding off popular sentiments.
haha losers
Why would any one believe that citizens would ever vote to tax themselves permanently? Voters (or at least reasonable thinking voters) would never vote to tax themselves, when there are all the wealthy businesses that “import” and “export” and “provide interstate commerce” that they could vote to tax. Where most of the working class can vote, they would always “overrule” any attempt to tax themselves. The 16th Amendment (income tax) is an example of how business wealth and influence got legislation passed without the consent of the governed, in the secret chambers behind closed doors.
The Supreme Court found the income tax to be unconstitutional in 1895, so in ‘13 they had to sneak in the 16th.
Gotta pay the FED
THIS girardacles GUY IS A REAL MORON.
Ron Paul and all you other idiots who think the income tax is illegal are morons. It’s cited 3 times in the constitution the power invested to tax AND countless countless court cases in which every single case was loss by the “income tax law is illegal.” You’re all morons. Also, the 16th amendment doesn’t give the power, it only was meant to clarify, with or without it the government has constitutional and common law power to tax. NO lawyer would tell you otherwise.
I don’t care if taxes are legal or not, thats not the issue today. the issue is that our government is taxing the hell out of us, with spending out of control with no…I mean ZERO accountability. Social Security is a Ponzi scheme and we have been duped. Our government is out of control and this new Obama admin is just a continuation of the same old tax and spend policies. Our first black president isn’t going to change a single thing. The moron ends up being you for falling for a bunch of criminals running the country.
Girardacles:
Since you are so adamant that the Income Tax is authorized in the U. S. Constitution would you please cite the Article, Section and Clause where the Congress has authority to implement this anti-growth progressive tax. And I don’t mean citing the 16th Amendment which the U. S. Supreme Court refuses to hear the evidence of its illegality – so much for our right to petition.
Ok, let’s say your right for agrument sake right know! We have an income tax that the government taxes us on, so why don’t we get an annual tax report from them telling us where and what our taxes were spent on. And another thing is why can’t we use our politicians as deducdibles, probably didn’t spell that right, just in a hurry, anyways why can’t we don’t that, because were the ones who pay their salaries!
You are correct Jason, but the power of the states to tax. Not the federal goverment.
The constitution states that if a tax is laid upon the people it shall be a uniformed or direct tax which means that everyone pays the same amount based on census of enumeration. The current income tax is a progressive tax which confirms that wealth redistribution was going on long before the current president came along.
Rep. Paul did not say the income tax was illegal, he said it is un-constitutional, which is why the 16th ammendment needed to be ratified in order to implement the tax.
Rep. Paul suggests a repeal of the 16th ammendment and a restoration of the spirit of the constition of the United States.
If my understanding of constitutional law and pursuit of this legal and moral approach toward taxation makes me an “idiot” or a “moron” then I guess that is simply my fate. What’s yours?
http://political-resources.com/taxes/16thamendment/default.htm
Income tax is not constitutional. The 16th amendment was not ratified. If you do not know what that means, don’t bother replying.
Secretary of State Philander Knox on February 25, 1913 declared the 16th to be “in effect” but never produced any evidence it was fully ratified.
WAKE UP AMERICA!!! THE BANKS (FED) ARE STEALING YOUR INHERITANCE.
JD
Jeremy- Feb.3, 1913: Delaware ratified the amendment giving it the necessary 3/4 of states to become law. It was subsequently ratified by more states but Delaware was enough.
I’m a paraplegic so I live on the dole. And workman’s comp (since 1991). (I never settled with them.)
I’d like to some figures. If we discontinued the irs how would that cut back on cake and circuses? Can we even cut that much spending?
We are talking about a complete overhaul of government and society. I’m not against it, but I don’t see how it could come about without a revolution. Say, a constitution reimplementation kind of uprising
We ought to be teaching about the constitution, in depth, in our schools. Then, people like me would have realized years ago that our rights were being eroded, that the income tax was illegal.
Thanks,
Lee Dillard