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.
Note: This summary of Ron Paul’s position has been determined to be incomplete! Contact us to join RonPaul.com as a voluntary editor. Help us set the record straight and keep this page up-to-date.
As some one who supports the Tea Party Movement Congressman Paul’s son for the US Senate in Kentucky I feel it was wrong of the movement to go after a someone who represents the spirit of the movement and who along with Sen McCain is against government waste and Obama’s Anti-American agnda.
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I love how everyone is crying about taxes and does nothing about it. Your still paying them. I know they put you jail for that…shucks. So they give free room and board for not paying taxes…go figure. Also I love watching all these old people complain about taxes as they collect their wellfare *cough* I meen social security checks and their socialized medicine *cough* I mean Medicare.
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The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) intends to purchase sixty Remington Model 870 Police RAMAC #24587 12 gauge pump-action shotguns for the Criminal Investigation Division. The Remington parkerized shotguns, with fourteen inch barrel, modified choke, Wilson Combat Ghost Ring rear sight and XS4 Contour Bead front sight, Knoxx Reduced Recoil Adjustable Stock, and Speedfeed ribbed black forend, ………..
https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=8d3b076bd4de14bbda5aba699e80621d&tab=core&_cview=1&cck=1&au=&ck=
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[...] God I know the feeling. On the bright side though, tax season is near. Bright side? Taxes | Ron Paul .com __________________ "In the beginning of a change, the Patriot is a scarce man, brave, hated [...]
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How can the Fed give a tax refund to those who paid no taxes? Not how, why? Why does the Fed give refunds to those who pay no taxes? Defacto bribes for votes? Repeal, amend the 24th Amendment ratified 1/23/64. It was meant to eliminate only the poll tax. Dimocrats added “or any other tax”. Who was the President at that time? Hmmm. Did we see THE NEW DEAL. And now with Barry O, NEW DEAL II. Please Dims, bring back JFK.
Just edit,eliminate three words at the end of Amendment XXIV,Section 1. “or other tax.” 99.9% of what Congress does involves spending your tax $$ and fiat, FED printed $$. Congress’ actions/ intentions have changed quite a bit since 1789 and again, fundamentally, since 1913, when they were given a blank checkbook. TAX & SPEND. TAX & SPEND. Is the mantra now “How can I get re-elected?”
How about “If you don’t ante up, you don’t get dealt any cards.” Today,those who pay no taxes get as much say so in how it is spent, through representation, as those who do. That is of course if you don’t have your own lobbyist.
NO REPRESENTATION WITHOUT TAXATION.
Congress has the power to edit the 24th Amendment. What do you think? Too radical? Please check out http://www.TheAdvocates.org. Check out he World’s Smallest Political Quiz.
RON PAUL 2012. JB.
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Comments Please concerning:
Have you searched Income tax law for “Excluded income”?
http://whatistaxed.com/
and
31 Questions and Answers about the Internal Revenue Service Paul Andrew Mitchell, B.A., M.S.
http://waronyou.com/topics/31-questions-and-answers-about-the-internal-revenue-service/
Thanks,
Larry
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Our founding fathers and the old Republican Party would turn over in their graves to see Ron Paul ignore their wisdom on the tariff:
“We were suffering from the restrictions of foreign nations, who had shackled our commerce, while we were unable to retaliate: and all now agreed that it would be advantageous to the union to enlarge the powers of Congress: that they should be enabled in the amplest manner to regulate commerce, and to lay and collect duties on the imports throughout the United States.”
“The Address and Reasons of Dissent of the Minority of the Convention of Pennsylvania to their Constituents”
Samuel Bryan
December 18, 1787
In the debate on the first tariff bill in 1789, Fisher Ames, one of the ablest men in that Congress, said :
” I conceive, sir, that the present Constitution was dictated by commercial necessity more than by any other cause. The want of an efficient government to secure the manufacturing interest, and to advance our commerce, was long seen by men of judgment and pointed out by patriots solicitous to promote our general welfare.”
Daniel Webster, historically known, as “the Great Expounder of the Constitution,” in a speech at Buffalo, June, 1833, declared : ” The protection of American labor against the injurious competition of foreign labor, so far at least as respects general handicraft productions, is known historically to have been one end designed to be obtained by establishing the Constitution.”
Years later he repeated this idea, but much clearer and stronger in a speech at Albany, in August, 1844, when he said :
” In Colonial times, and during the time of the Convention, the idea was held up, that domestic industry could not prosper, manufactures and the mechanic arts could not advance, the condition of the common country could not be carried up to any considerable elevation, unless there should be one government to lay one rate of duty upon imports throughout the Union ; regard to be had, in laying this duty, to the protection of American labor and industry.
” I defy the man in any degree conversant with the history, in any degree acquainted with the annals of this country from 1787 to 1789, when the Constitution was adopted, to say that protection of American labor and industry, was not a leading, I might almost say, the leading motive, South as well as North, for the formation of the new government. Without that provision in the Constitution, it never could have been adopted.”
GEORGE WASHINGTON, in his first annual message, speaking of the nation as ” a free people,” said :
“Their safety and interest require that they promote such manufactures as tend to render them independent of others for essentials, particularly military supplies.”
In his seventh annual message he shows that ‘ our agriculture, commerce and manufactures prosper beyond example (under the tariff of 1789). Every part of the Union displays indications of rapid and various improvement, and with burdens so light as scarcely to be perceived. Is it too much to say that our country exhibits a spectacle of national happiness never surpassed, if ever before equalled.
In his eighth and last annual message Washington said : “Congress has repeatedly and not without success, directed their attention to the encouragement of manufactures. The object is of too much consequence not to insure a continuance of their efforts in every way which shall appear eligible.”
JOHN ADAMS, our second President, in his last annual message referred to our economical system, and congratulated the country upon the great prosperity then existing, and added: ” I observe, with much satisfaction, that the product of the revenue during the present year has been more considerable than during any former period.
” This result affords conclusive evidence of the great resources of the country, and of the wisdom and efficiency of the measures which have been adopted by Congress, for the protection of commerce and preservation of the public credit.”
THOMAS JEFFERSON, our third President, often referred to as the Founder of the Democratic Party, in his second annual message, in enumerating the land-marks by which we are to guide ourselves in all our proceedings, mentions the following as one of the most prominent: “To protect the manufactures adapted to our circumstances.”
Our protective system, under the Tariff Act of 1780, had produced results far greater and more satisfactory than had been anticipated ; and in 1806 Mr. Jefferson found that there was likely to be a considerable surplus after paying all the public debt called for by our contracts ; and in his sixth annual message he thus presents his views to the country as to the best method of disposing of that surplus : ” Shall we,” he asks, ” suppress the imposts (duties) and give that advantage to foreign over our domestic manufactures ? On a few articles of more general and necessary use, the suppression in due season, will doubtless be right; but the great mass of the articles on which imposts are laid,are foreign luxuries, purchased by those only who are rich enough to afford themselves the use of them.”
Again he wrote : ” The general inquiry now is, shall we make our own comforts, or go without them at the will of a foreign nation ? He, therefore, who is now against’domestic manufactures, must be for reducing us either to a dependence upon that nation, or to be clothed in skins and live like beasts in caves and dens. I am proud to say I am not one of these. Experience has taught me that manufactures are now as necessary to our independence as to our comforts.”
‘The prohibiting duties we lay on all articles of foreign manufacture, which prudence requires us to establish at home, with the patriotic determination of every good citizen to use no foreign article which can be made within ourselves, without regard to difference of price, secures us against a relapse into foreign dependency.”
In his letter to Humphrey, 1809, he wrote : ” My own ideals that we should encourage home manufactures to the extent of our own consumption of everything of which we raise the raw materials,”
In 1817, after the close of the second war with Great Britain, in accepting an election to membership in a ” Society for the Encouragement of Domestic Manufactures,” Jefferson wrote: “The history of the last twenty years has been a significant lesson for us all to depend for necessaries on ourselves alone ; and I hope twenty years more will place the American hemisphere under a system of its own, essentially peaceable and industrious and not needing to extract its comforts out of the eternal fires raging in the old world.”
JAMES MADISON, our fourth President, recognized as ” the Father of the Constitution,” in a special message to Congress, May 23, 1809, said: ” It will be worthy of the just and provident care of Congress to make such further alterations in the laws as will more especially protect and foster the several branches of manufacture which have been recently instituted or extended by the laudible exertions of our citizens.”
Again, in a special message, Feb. 20, 1815, Mr. Madison said: “But there is no subject that can enter with greater force and merit into the deliberations of Congress than a consideration of the means to preserve and promote the manufactures which have sprung into existence and obtained an unparalleled maturity throughout the United States during the period of the European wars. This source of national independence and wealth I anxiously recommend, therefore, to the prompt and constant guardianship of Congress.”
JAMES MONROE, our fifth President, in his inaugural said : ” Our manufactures will likewise require the systematic and fostering care of the government. Possessing, as we do, all the raw materials, the fruit of our own soil and industry, we ought not to depend, in the degree we have done, on supplies from other countries. Equally important is it to provide at home a market for our raw materials, as by extending the competition it will enhance tlfc price and protect the cultivator against the casualities incident to foreign markets.”
In his seventh annual message he says : ” Having formerly communicated my views to Congress respecting the encouragement which ought to be given to our manufactures, and the principle on which it should be founded, I have only to add that those views remain unchanged. I recommend a review of the tariff for the purpose of affording such additional protection to those articles which we are prepared to manufacture, or which are more immediately connected with the defense and independence of the country.”
Here, then, are the views in brief of our first five Presidents, and the foremost men of the years in which the Tariff Act of 1789 was a law. We find no hint of dissatisfaction with protection ; no suggestion of a repeal of the law, and no intimation of a modification of the tariff laws, except to give them ” a prompt and constant guardianship ” and “additional protection to those articles we are prepared to manufacture,” etc.
“Abandonment of the protective policy by the American government must result in the increase of both useless labour and idleness; and so, in proportion must produce want and ruin among our people.”
Abraham Lincoln
Alfred E. Eckes, Jr.
Opening America’s Market: U.S. Foreign Trade Policy Since 1776
p.28
U.S. TARIFF HISTORY 1821-2000
YEARS……………..AVERAGE EFFECTIVE TARIFF (% tax on all imports)
1821-1830………….46.6%
1831-1840………….24.9%
1841-1850………….24.0%
1851-186……………20.8%
1861-1870………….36.2%
1871-1880………….31.3%
1881-1890………….30.1%
1891-1900………….23.7%
1821-1900………….29.7%
1901-1910………….25.0%
1911-1920………….11.8%
1921-1930………….13.8%
1931-1940………….16.8%
1941-1950………….9.0%
1901-1950………….15.3%
1951-1960………….5.9%
1961-1970………….7.3%
1971-1980………….4.0%
1981-1990………….3.5%
1991-2000………….2.5%
The income tax was created in 1913, just in time to be around to fund WW I :
YEAR…..INOME TAX REVENUE…..TARIFF REVENUE
1916…………$173,387,000………$213,185,000
1917…………$675,250,000………$225,962,000
Up until 1916, the tariff was the largest single Federal revenue source.
1917 was the first time in U.S. history that the income tax surpassed the tariff and we’ve never looked back since then.
2007 IMPORTS AND TARIFF REVENUES
IMPORTS = $2,345.983 billion
(source: http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/tables/09s1260.pdf )
TARIFFS = $26.010 billion of which $1.339 billion came from trust fund revenues.
(source: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy09/pdf/hist.pdf Table 2.5 p.50 of 342)
$26.010 – $1.339 = $24.671 billion
$24.671 / $2,345.983 x 100% = 1.0% EFFECTIVE TAX RATE
U.S GDP = $13,841 billion
(source: http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/tables/09s0645.pdf )
Imports as a percent of U.S. GDP are now a staggering 16.9% of GDP yet only pay 1.0% effective tax rate.
Percent of Federal revenues paid by tariffs in 1905 was 47.4%
In 2002, 49% of all Federal revenue came from the personal income tax.
The entire U.S. economy now suffers under a 30% effective tax rate.
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“We don’t need government agreements to have free trade. We merely need to lower or eliminate taxes on the American people, without regard to what other nations do. Remember, tariffs are simply taxes on consumers. Americans have always bought goods from abroad; the only question is how much our government taxes us for doing so. As economist Henry Hazlitt explained, tariffs simply protect politically-favored special interests at the expense of consumers, while lowering wages across the economy as a whole. Hazlitt, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, Murray Rothbard, and countless other economists have demolished every fallacy concerning tariffs, proving conclusively that unilateral elimination of tariffs benefits the American people. We don’t need CAFTA or any other international agreement to reap the economic benefits promised by CAFTA supporters, we only need to change our own harmful economic and tax policies. Let the rest of the world hurt their citizens with tariffs; if we simply reduce tariffs and taxes at home, we will attract capital and see our economy flourish.”
- Dr. Ron Paul
—–
K.I.S.S.
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C. Mantix Quote:
“As economist Henry Hazlitt explained, tariffs simply protect politically-favored special interests at the expense of consumers, while lowering wages across the economy as a whole.”
………………………………………………………
Absolute, historical nonsense.
First, an elementary fact that economists from Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek, to Thomas Malthus, the French economist, J.C.L.Simonde de Sismondi, Karl Marx, and essentially every modern economist agrees upon:
THE PRODUCER IS THE CONSUMER
You talk of consumers as if they come from Mars and producers come from Venus. THEY ARE ONE AND THE SAME.
Now, the historical evidence that you and every Austrian economics zealot (AND I DO MEAN ZEALOT – YOUR FREE TRADE UTOPIAN DREAM IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN HISTORICAL FACT – CHALLENGE MY FACTS) chooses to ignore, censor, throw out, push aside, pretend it never happened, etc…………
The French Commission, in their report of the Centennial Exposition in 1876, declared “that under the shelter of a prohibitory system the people of the United States have organized a powerful industry which rivals England in cheapness.”
The German Commission also stated that “the present condition of American manufactures show the fallacy of the free trade doctrine, that the products of a country are raised in price by Protective duties.
Before the Tariff of 1828 English axes sold here for from $2 to $4. By the Tariff a duty of 35% was levied on axes. In 1836 foreign and home-made axes were selling side by side at from $1.25 to $1.35 each, and in 1876 they sold for 80 cents each, a decrease to one-quarter of the price of 1828, as a result of home industries fostered by a Protective Tariff.
In 1840 the English furnished us our saws at from $15.75 to $19 per dozen; with a Tariff of 45% on saws they sell at from $5 to $10 per dozen, which is a saving of one-half the price of a saw to every farmer and mechanic. Beside, the superior methods which we have devised in the manufacture of saws enable us to undersell England in her own markets.
The average price of the salt per barrel, made at Saginaw during the year 1866, was $1.80, the duty being 34 cents per barrel; in 1882 the average price had been reduced to 74 cents per barrel, or but 40 cents more than the duty. Is the duty added to the price of the commodity ? Is the consumer not benefited by the Tariff which enables us to produce annually 40,000,000 barrels of salt and sell it at less than one-half its former price ?
An importer of such goods (crockery) testified before the Tariff Commission: “I have here a tumbler, known to the trade as a whiskey tumbler; six years ago, when American manufacturers commenced to make them, they were imported by the case at $1.40 per dozen; we made some, the first price was $1.25. They now sell for 40 cents.” The duty levied was 40%; as a result we have the article for 16 cents less than the duty upon the original cost before home production began. Not only has the price decreased, but a large industry has been built up which employs thousands of men and millions of capital, making a home market for our products and increasing the wealth of the country.
Before the Tariff of 1860 steel for locomotive tires cost 30 cents per pound; today, with a tariff of 2 ½
cents per pound, they are selling for 5 ½ cents. Wagon tires which sold for 16 cents per pound, with no duty, now sell for 7 cents with a duty of 3 cents per pound.
When the English controlled our market they sold us cast steel for 17 ½ cents per pound which they now sell us at 10 ½ cents, although in their near market in France they get 12 ½ cents for the same article. The reason is that the duty of 45% has so developed our industries that we control our market and fix the price 2 cents lower than it is in France, and the English must sell at our price or not at all.
When the Tariff was removed in 1846 iron rails were selling at $50; the English immediately reduced the price to $40, until our mills were closed; then they advanced the price to $60, finally to $75 a ton; between 1850 and 1854 England sold us 800,000 tons at $75; all of which we might have produced with a Tariff of $10 and kept the price down to $50, and saved $20,000,000 to American railroad owners. In 1867 steel rails sold at $166 currency, with no Tariff, we produced but 2,277 tons. In the year 1883, with a Tariff of 1 cent a pound in force for 15 years, we produced 1,500,000 tons at $40, and the importation of steel rails has decreased from 182,135 tons in 1882 to 2,395 in 1885. It is estimated that we have produced $1,800,000,000 worth of rails since we began their manufacture; this is so much added wealth to the country, which has given just that much encouragement and profit to our labor, mines, farms and other manufactures. A like increase in product and decrease in price can be shown in all departments of our iron industry.
The development of our bituminous coal beds under a Tariff of 75 cents a ton enabled us in 1884 to put out a product worth $143,700,000, much of which was sold at the mouth of the pit for $1 a ton, while the English paid $1.18 for the same grade of coal. Does this not show that it will profit a nation to grant a protective Tariff, or even a bounty, on any industry if thereby her own abundant resources may be developed ?
The Defender
Home Production
April 28, 1890
A glance at the history of prices of tin plate for twenty years past will make clear the necessity and propriety of the McKinley tariff, and, at the same time, illustrate the characteristic policy of British free trade manufacturers. “In 1873, British importers advanced the price of tin plate to $12 a box, in American markets ; and at once, American tin-plate factories commenced operations. British importers within three years reduced the price to $4.50 per box, and our mills had to shut down. When this was done British importers advanced prices to $9 and $10 per box, and under this stimulus, in 1879, American mills again started up. As soon as they were well at work, British importers again reduced the price to $4 per box ; and then made a standing offer or more properly a threat, to sell their tin plate twenty-five cents a box cheaper than the American product, no matter what the price of the latter might be. Of course, this action completely finished the American industry, and prices were at once advanced from $4 to $7 per box.”
The McKinley tariff put an end to this outrage and robbery, and this fact alone is sufficient justification for its enactment.
It puts a duty on tin plate so high that it will probably soon transfer the most of that great industry to this country. Already many large plants are in process of erection, or have been completed, and are producing a superior tin plate, at Brooklyn, Pittsburgh, Chicago, St. Louis, and other places, and others will soon go up. The largest mines of tin in the world have lately been found in the Dakotas, California, Texas and Virginia ; so that it is morally certain that in the near future we shall be able to produce at home the full supply of tin and tin plate that we need, and which now amounts to over $30,000,000 in value annually,
When this is accomplished it will afford a new business that will annually pay to American labor not less than $23,000,000 ; it will require from iron ore miners not less than 1,000,000 tons of iron ore more than they now produce ; from limestone quarries 300,000 tons more of limestone ; from coal mines and coke ovens 2,000,000 tons more of coal and coke ; from blast furnaces 400,000 tons more of pig iron ; from lead mines and smelting furnaces 5,500,000 pounds more of lead ; from slaughter and packing houses 13,000,000 pounds more of tallow and oil; from chemical factories 40,000,000 pounds more of sulphuric acid ; from lumber yards 12,000,000 feet more of lumber ; and will give constant work to at least 35,000 persons. Indeed, it is already (1892) in large part fulfilled.
D. G. Harrimon
American Tariffs From Plymouth Rock To McKinley, 1892
p. 65-66
………………………………………………………
DID YOU PAY ANY ATTENTION AT ALL TO THE EXAMPLES OF WHEN ENGLAND DESTORYED OUR INDUSTRIES AND THEN ABUSED THEIR POSITION OF COMPLETE MONOPOLY BY PRICE GOUGING THE AMERICAN CONSUMER?
OR DOES YOUR FREE TRADE CENSORED MIND NOT COMPREHEND INTERNATIONAL MONOPOLY / CARTEL PRICE FIXING?
NEED MODERN EXAMPLES?
“By the late 1980’s, Japan dominated America’s television and consumer electronics markets. The logical next step was to squeeze extra profits from this dominant position.
In 1989, New York Attorney General Robert Abrams revealed that Panasonic and Technics (both subsidiaries of Japan’s Matsushita) had mounted a verticle price-fixing scheme in America. Matsushita, of course, was a founding member of the television cartel. The Panasonic/Technics scheme was hauntingly reminiscent of what the Home Electric Appliance Market Stabilization Council had pulled off in Japan in the 1950’s.
Abrams revealed that between March 1988 and August 1989 the Japanese companies had forced their American retailers – among them, Best Products, K Mart, Montgomery Ward, Circuit City – to charge fixed minimum prices for their products. Though his charge referred only to the sixteen most popular products of Panasonic and Technics – VCR’s, camcorders, cordless telephones, answering machines, and stereo equipment, among other items – Abrams said that the firms had, in earlier efforts, tried to set fixed prices on all three hundred items they sold in the United States.
Through their scheme, the firms artificially had raised their U.S. prices by 5 to 10 percent. Abrams said the price-fixing was administered “through an elaborate nationwide scheme involving scores of [Panasonic and Technics] sales executives pressuring thousands of retailers to comply with the scheme and monitoring the prices they actually charged.”
To enforce this price-fixing effort, Panasonic directed its executives to keep all U.S. retailers of Panasonic goods in step with the firm’s policies. Panasonic told its employees that “those dealers not adhering to company policy could ‘create chaos in the marketplace’ and would allow Panasonic to ‘lose face with the entire industry.’ “
The question that lingers is whether the rest of “the entire industry,”as Panasonic called it, really did know about Matsushita’s price-fixing activities. If they did not, then how could Panasonic “lose face”? More important, were other consumer electronics companies participating in similar verticle price-fixing schemes?
When Abrams confronted Panasonic and Technics, they immediately agreed to a settlement – without actually acknowledging wrongdoing. The settlement required the companies to stop price-fixing, to repay $16 million in overcharges to nearly 700,000 customers, and to pay another $2 million to the state for settlement administration costs.
The settlement also revealed:
Lechmere, Inc., a retailer with stores in New York and other northeastern states, was told by Panasonic that it would “make an example of dealers charging below the ‘go’ price [the fixed price] and would terminate all or part of its shipments to noncomplying dealers.”
When Luria and Sons, a Florida retailer, undercut Panasonic’s fixed price on a cordless telephone, four different Panasonic representatives threatened that Panasonic would cease doing business with noncomplying retailers.
As in Japan, this sort of price-fixing allows the manufacturer to gain an earned monopoly profit, which can then be used to subsidize dumping and other anti-competitive behavior.
But the Japanese were able to extort monopoly profits from American consumers because America’s own television industry in effect had been destroyed by two decades of illegal, anti-competitive behavior by the Japanese.”
Pat Choate
Agents Of Influence, 1990
p. 102-103
“After several years of lengthy and detailed studies and hearings concerning the problem of sharply increasing fastener imports and the impact that this has had on the U.S. fastener industry, the International Trade Commission recommended to President Carter that higher tariffs be imposed. On February 10th, President Carter rejected the ITC’s recommendation, saying that fastener tariffs would be inflationary and not in the nation’s best economic interest…..
The Japanese already have demonstrated how quickly fastener prices can increase when they have a market monopoly (400% increase for some fasteners during 1973-74). While President Carter is concerning himself with inflation, I hope that he will give serious consideration to this possibility.”
Bob Kelly, Editorial Director
“Let’s Get Our Act Together on Trade”
Assembly Engineering, May 1978
………………………………………………………
ANY PART OF “400% PRICE INCREASE” YOU FAIL TO UNDERSTAND?
PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOUR READING COMPREHENSION FAILS YOU.
FREE TRADE MYTHOLOGY —- MEET REAL WORLD REALITY.
The protectionist Japanese laugh at the Austrian school, the same Japanese that with only 40% of the U.S. population are now the worlds’ largest automaker, the worlds’ largest machine tool maker, second largest steel producer – only behind protectionist China, the global leader in robot technology, largest producer of electronic time pieces, the world leader in LCD production, etc….
Steve
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And the other side, what has historically happened to nations that adopted free trade. Besides the disaster of the U.S. between 1783-1789 which gave birth to our present Constitution, these other examples are inconvenient truths for the free trade zealot.
Ireland And Free Trade
“The only country in the world I know of that has thoroughly free trade forced upon her by compulsory process is that most distracted and unfortunate land, Ireland. Before the union her manufacturing industries were protected against England by duties on woolens, silks, cotton, yarn, and twist, and cotton manufactured goods. Her calicoes and muslins were protected by a duty almost prohibitory, and Ireland was rapidly becoming a successful manufacturing country. Her people were happy, contented, industrious, and prosperous. There was a loom in almost every house, and with it comfort came, too. Her linens were known and appreciated all over the world, and her silks were gaining a ready market.
There were in 1800, as appears by an imperfect census then taken, over 8,000 weavers employed in Cork alone, over 5,000 manufacturing woolen goods in Dublin, 3,000 making blankets in Balbrigan, 2,000 weaving calicoes in Wicklow, 1,000 making flannels, while the numbers engaged in linen work were immense.
This linen trade was encouraged by subsidies, but they were gradually withdrawn until all protection ceased in 1826. In 1825 more than thirteen million of dollars were expended in the purchase of coarse, unbleached, home-made webs of linen. “What a power of good, of comfort, and of happiness, those home-made webs revealed.
England, not content with destroying Ireland’s navigation, with crushing out, in the earlier days, her manufacture of woolens, greedy to manufacture for the world, determined that the rest of mankind should raise the raw materials to feed her hungry looms, as the South wanted us to feed their slaves, beguiled poor Ireland into assenting to the act of the union, under the terms of which every duty was repealed—some gradually, to be sure, but certainly. The act continued the tariff on woolens for twenty years, terminated it on calicoes and muslins in 1821, on cotton yarn and twist in 1816, withdrew all subsidies in 1826, and Ireland enjoyed the benefit of absolute free trade.
What was the result? England held both ends of the bargain. Ireland could raise in her fertile soil the raw material. England could make it into goods cheaper than she could, but Ireland had no voice in the price to be paid for either.
In 1840, another census was taken, and there were 500 blanket-makers in Kilkenny, 200 silk- weavers in Dublin, no carpet makers in all Ireland, no linen- weavers in Cork, 300 operatives in that city in all the manufacturing industries, where fifteen years before there were 8,000 weavers alone.
Free trade had done its work and Ireland was starving. She is the only absolutely free trade country in the world today, the only land enjoying its rare privileges in complete fullness, and what a commentary it affords with a good climate, a fertile soil, great rivers, splendid water-power, broad, safe bays and harbors, an abundance of minerals, an industriously-inclined people, it is the most terribly vexed, troubled, suffering, distracted, impoverished, starving country in the world.
Irishmen, loving their land earnestly and with more unbounded enthusiasm than the men of any other country, have been driven into exile by the millions. Now, I do not blindly charge all of her woes to free trade alone; land tenure has to answer for a portion, not for more than half. Give her a parliament of her own, and the first act passed would be a protective tariff, and in twenty years from now the exiled Irishman would return to the land he loves and find it peaceful, contented, and prosperous. England, for her own selfish purposes, fastened these two fearful leeches upon her, and they have been fattening on her blood.”
Senator William Pierce Frye
Speech in the United States Senate, February 10,1882
“We give to our rivals a free market of 43,000,000 persons in the United Kingdom to add to their own free market. Thus the United States possess an open market of 82,000,000 persons in the United States, plus an open market of 43,000,000 persons in Great Britain, making, altogether, 125,000,000. Similarly, Germany possesses an open market of 43,000,000 in Great Britain. As against this, we posses only such residule of our open market of 43,000,000 as the unrestricted competition of foreign nations leaves unimpaired…We call ourselves Free Traders, but we have never secured Free Trade for ourselves; we have merely succeeded in enlarging the area within which our Protectionist competitors enjoy Free Trade.”
John Stuart Mill
“The Op-Ed History of America”
p. 23
Even the rabid Free-Trader, John Maynard Keynes, had to back track on his free trade religion after he witnessed the whole sale gutting of Britains’ economy by free trade:
“Defense of free trade theory is, I submit, the result of pure intellectual error, due to a complete misunderstanding of the theory of equilibrium in international trade – an error which it is worthwhile to extirpate if one can, because it is shared, I fancy, by a multitude of less eminent free traders. Does he (William Beveridge-London School of Economics) believe that it makes no difference to the amount of employment in this country if I decide to buy a British car instead of an American car?”
The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes
vol. 20 p. 508
Pennsylvania steel manufacturer Joseph Wharton argued that imported steel rails from England had cost $165 in gold per ton in 1864; five years later, behind a protective tariff, a U.S. steel industry was producing all of America’s needs for $80 per ton.
By 1880, the United States behind a protective tariff, was second only to Great Britain in its share of world manufacturing output, with the U.S. producing 14.7 % compared to Britain’s 22.9%. By 1913, the United States was producing 32% of the world’s output compared to Germany at 14.8% and a sinking, free trade Britain at 13.6%. “We lead all nations in agriculture; we lead all nations in mining; we lead all nations in manufacturing,” President McKinley declared. “These are the trophies we bring after twenty-nine years of a protective tariff”.
From 1869 to 1900, the gross national product quadrupled.
The United States ran budget surpluses every year from 1866 to 1893.
The national debt was reduced by two-thirds; by 1900 it was less than 7% of the GNP.
Customs duties provided 58% of all federal revenue from 1869 to 1900.
There was no income tax – save Lincoln’s wartime tax and Cleveland’s brief 2% flat tax on the rich, which was declared unconstitutional.
Between 1870 and 1900, commodity prices fell 58%.
Real wages, despite a doubling of the U.S. population, rose 53 percent.
Annual growth of the U.S. economy averaged more than 4% a year from 1870 to 1913.
From 1870 to 1913, U.S. industrial production rose 4.7% a year, compared with 2.1% a year in free trade Britain.
American exports grew by almost 5% a year from 1870 to 1913, while free trade Britain’s grew less than 3%.
Protectionist America’s share of world exports rose from 7.9% in 1870 to 12.9% in 1913 – while free trade Britain’s fell from 18.9% to 13.9%.
Between 1869 and 1910, merchandise imports fell from 8% of the GNP to 4%.
The United States began the era with half of Britain’s production and ended it with more than double Britain’s.
By 1885, the United States had surpassed Great Britain, then considered the world’s major industrial power, in manufacturing output. By the turn of the century, it was consuming more energy than Germany, France, Austria-Hungary, Russia, Japan, and Italy combined. Between the 1865 and 1900, American coal production rose by 800%, steel rails by 523%, railway track mileage by 567%, and wheat production by 256%.
And worst of all, after Britain repealed her corn laws, she became so dependent on American grain for food that when World War I came she nearly starved from German U-boat blockade. Between 1846 and 1910 British imports of wheat grew 1,000 percent. On the eve of WW I, once self-sufficient Britain could only grow enough wheat to feed a fourth of her population.
Rear Admiral William S. Sims, in some ways a Rickover type, loquacious and nonconforming, but withal a very handsome sailor, was already on his way to London for a reconnaissance; he reported to the Admiralty three days after the United States entered the war. Admiral Jellicoe, now the First Sea Lord, showed him the figures on the U-boat sinkings. The Allies had started the war with twenty-one million tons of shipping, or about six million tons more than was essential to feed Britain and keep the deployed armies supplied. The shipbuilding program had not quite stayed apace with the loss rate. Now, according to Jellicoe’s figures, the U-boats had wiped out one third of the six-million margin in two months. The March (1917) losses had been 500,000 tons; April losses would pass 800,000. Said Sims: “Looks as if the Germans are winning the war.”
“They will unless we stop those losses,” replied Jellicoe.
The American Heritage History of World War I
1964
p. 206
FREE TRADE MYTH ——— MEET REAL WORLD REALITY
Steve
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I’m a small/med business owner I would love a referral to a good tax guy (cpa, attorney) who could “legally” help me structure my business and reduce my taxes. anyone care to share this priceless resource???
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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
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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
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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……
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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.
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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
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SRV had it right from the start!!
If the house is a rocken!!
Now is the time to push the FAIR Tax!!!!!!!!!!!!
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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.
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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
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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 !!!!
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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.
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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
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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).
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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..
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New to Ron Paul! HE SHOULD BE IN OFFICE! If I file “exempt” what will happen? Will the IRS come after me? If so, what next? I’m tired of living poor. We need to stand up and take action! How can I help?
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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.
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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 !!
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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.
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“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
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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.
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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.
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Add to tax list:
CDC Chief: Soda Tax Could Combat Obesity
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/07/27/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry5192172.shtml
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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.
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“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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Reality About Social Security
Just a tax, phoney insurance policy, mathematically flawed, will never never work
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MfbRlLVr2E
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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.
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