Forget What You Know About Taxes This is the last entry from the What Would You Do As President? series. Up this time around is:

• Revise the tax code to bring fairness and relief to the working/middle classes.

Could that be any vaguer? Revising the tax could mean such a wide spectrum of thought that there’s absolutely no way to cover all of it with any depth in this one post. If I had to boil my thoughts down to a single politician’s views, and please don’t stone me for saying this, but it would be that crazy Ron Paul. Look up a few of his speeches on youtube and you might be surprised. The whole point of Ron Paul is that he is a strict Constitutionalist that thinks there is far too much government and that government has more or less missed the point for far too many years.

Lincoln started taxing to pay for the Civil War, but it was repealed after a few years. Income tax started up again in 1894, but the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional the next year. It came back for good in 1913 with the 16th amendment. Even though the Constitution prohibited direct taxes to individuals, the powers that be decided to make it possible.

Regardless, the key point is not the constitutionality of taxes; the point is that income taxes have only really been around for less than 100 years. If we survived without taxes before, what makes today so much different other than us being satisfied with our present condition? I'd like to argue that everybody could be better off with less, or even no taxes (gasp!).

Maybe it has something to do with our money not being on a standard (like the gold standard). I don't want to jump to conclusions, but I do know that when there is a gold standard the government can’t just print money to fund its spending, so it keeps government spending in check. Plus, it helps keep inflation under control so your money doesn’t become practically worthless in a few years.

So, what is my advice? To completely dump the entire Internal Revenue Service and forget about taxes? Not quite.

Let’s replace personal income tax with a consumption tax.

So, the taxes you pay when you buy stuff increases, but that is what replaces the income tax. In other words, if you buy less stuff you will pay less taxes. Businesses still get taxed separately, but their write-offs would obviously be better considering the inherit tax that goes with all of the products and services supporting their business.

Maybe that’s too crazy, so how about a very low flat tax plus consumption tax.

How about a 5% flat tax on all money earned (and we’ll still throw in a few tax incentives like dependents, mortgage tax adjustments, etc). Since people with a few more bucks will be buying the yachts and the luxury items, the taxes they will be paying will go up according to all of the stuff they spend their money on. I don’t know if these concepts are feasible, so maybe the better place to start is to start cutting out government programs and services since the government just costs way too much money. If we cut out enough, then the taxes we pay will be reduced.

Labels: government, law, money, politics, president, taxes

  ¶ 3:10 PM 2 Comments

  Legalize Stuff This is more from the What Would You Do As President? series. These are all items that I may or may not agree with, but they are pretty interesting to talk about. How about we just start legalizing all kinds of stuff? These are what some people think:

• I would legalize hemp for industrial uses. There are so many great industrial uses for hemp that it is absolutely stupid not to be using it.
• Legalize ALL drugs (this includes regulation and taxation. Want to end the illegal drug trade? This is the fastest way.)
• Pardon and release non-violent drug offenders to help with prison overcrowding - stick 'em with a fine instead.
• Reverse laws that punish victimless crimes.

Overcrowded prisons are a fact, so how can we deal with that problem? We could build more prisons...or we could let the ones that won't hurt anybody out. That makes you wonder 'who are the ones that won't hurt anyone?' Speaking in generalities, it would be the ones that did white collar crimes (fraud, etc) and probably drug offenders.

The immediate red flag is that if you don't go to jail for dealing drugs, then it'll get worse and worse. The best response to that is to regulate and tax the living crap out of selling recreational drugs - and to stick a heavy fine on those that do it illegally. Heck, while we're legalizing, regulating, and taxing the entire drug industry, let's legalize, regulate, and tax prostitution because all of that tax money would probably pay for a free universal health plan. Oh, and da ho'z wouldn't need no mo' P.I.M.P.S, fo' shizzle.

Going back to the druggies, I don't even think you'd have to lower the rap sheet implications for continued participation in the illegal drug trade. If it was a felony before, it still is. You just pay a hefty fine instead of doing jail time.

Cannibas Sativa (hemp) has a bazillion industrial uses. It's pretty much as useful as water. Millions of products could be produced from it, and it grows like a weed! Dude!!

I know that I don't agree with doing drugs, but why is there a double standard? Alcohol is a drug and it is legal, regulated, and taxed. Cigars and cigarettes are addictive, give you that 10 second high the first few times you do them, yet you can buy them everywhere. Marijuana is really not much different, so why is it illegal? Or, on the other side of the coin, why is alcohol legal? What about harder drugs? Maybe it's just the really hard and crazy addictive drugs (I'm thinking heroin) that should be illegal. Why are we only allowed to have one legal drug, and everything else will put you in jail?

You know what's weird? I always considered myself on the straight-edge "stick those druggies in jail" side of the equation, but there are too many inconsistencies for me to be happy about the current state of affairs. Besides, I tip a few back now and again, so why should I be allowed to look down upon pot smokers and other drug users unless they have truly destroyed their lives to the point that they have become complete degenerates? Alcoholics can also become degenerates or have little impact on their lives - so why the double standard?

Labels: alcohol, drugs, law, politics, president, prison, prostitution, taxes

  ¶ 3:46 PM 1 Comments

  What Would You Do As President? A bunch of people responded to the question What would you do as president of the United States of America?

I compiled a list of some of the interesting responses here (I'll be talking about a few of these in detail in a future post). I don't necessarily agree with all of these, but they are interesting to think about -- even if many are not feasible.

• Social Security and Medicare stop. You can stay on, but if you are under 40... you can forget ever using them. They are entitlement and bankrupting the government
• Congress now has a term limit. Lets say... 15 years.
• Cable lines are nationalized. Comcast et al can lease them from the government. Heck, you can use them for free. We need competition.
• Net neutrality is mandatory. If you degrade someone else's service because it competes with your own, you get fined BIG.
• Drivers licenses get harder to get and keep. Too many morons on cell phones that need to learn it's not a right.
• If you get caught in the country illegally, you get thrown out. Today. No questions... you're on the plane. Each time you sneek in, we send you farther away. If you've been here over 5 years and can speak English, you can stay. You're not a citizen. You're on a permanent visa. No voting. If you want citizenship, you can go back to your country and apply like everyone else.
• English is the national language. You want a government document in something else? Too bad, go to a country that speaks that language.
• Mandatory civil service. We can talk about giving you college tuition, but you serve. It can be military, or it can be civil (be a meter maid, that's fine with me). You will do something to give back to your country for a little while.
• Voting districts are now drawn by computer based on population and area. No more rigging that. You can't do it by race. You can't do it by party affiliation. If the seat isn't competitive, then we change the district to make it more competitive.
• Voting tests. They may have a really bad rap, but that's OK with me. Nothing complex, just some simple stuff. You have to be able to read at a 6th grade level. This discriminated against blacks because it was illegal to teach them to read. These days if you can't read, you can't participate effectively in politics. You also have to pass a ludicrously simple geography test. They will always change so you can't easily be taught to the test. If you can't find Canada on a map, you can't vote in the US.
• Able-bodied welfare recipients using benefits for greater than 12 months of the previous 4 years lose the right to vote.
• You can't get divorced without 6 months of good marriage counseling, preferable faith-based (you choose the faith, obviously). The one exception is abuse. If there is abuse, you can leave today. We'll help. But if you accuse abuse and it is proven that you lied, you're locked up.
• Also on the marriage front, you can't get married without at least a few sessions of marriage counseling. Talk about kids, values, in-laws, sex, where you want to live, religion, and everything else. The divorce rate is too high, and I see it as causing too many problems. These last two are designed to help lower that and improve things.
• There is a lot I don't like about the education system. We can try many different things to fix that. But if you cause too many problems schools should be able to kick you out. If you are that problematic your parents can educate you (or find someone else to). Stop ruining it for everyone else.
• Speaking of schools, let's partially privatize them. Similar to vouchers, the parents of the students can decide semester by semester where to send their kids. Schools get reimbursement based on their popularity and testing rates. Some privatization needs to occur to make education more efficiently run.
• If you don't like high school, that's OK, you can quit. As soon as you hit... let's say 10th grade... you can choose. You can continue on college prep (which is what most high schools are at this point) or you can go to a trade school. It's your choice. If you change your mind you can always get your GED later.
• File all the lawsuits you want. But if they are proven frivolous, you're paying for court costs (capped to keep things reasonable). You can't sue everyone, hope something sticks, and get away paying nothing anymore.
• Reverse laws that punish victimless crimes.
• Pardon and release non-violent drug offenders to help with prison overcrowding - stick 'em with a fine instead.
• Revise the tax code to bring fairness and relief to the working/middle classes
• Legalize ALL drugs (this includes regulation and taxation. Want to end the illegal drug trade? This is the fastest way.)
• Require all able-bodied citizens between ages 18 and 35 (male and female) to undergo military bootcamp. This is NOT a draft however; after going through bootcamp, you are not required to serve in the military.
• Abolish the two-party system
• Erase all censorship from all media...This includes: Internet, Television, print, video games, music, etc.
• Build a border-spanning fence. Every 75 miles, have a reinforced entry way in which people are allowed through.
• Require that any immigrants that enter the US to be able to speak English prior to being granted citizenship.
• Create a program that would be known as "If you can't feed em, don't breed em". Welfare drastically reduces for each additional child, hitting zero additional benefit after the third child.
• I would legalize hemp for industrial uses. There are so many great industrial uses for hemp that it is absolutely stupid not to be using it.
• Create a new government department who's purpose is to remove, regulate, or severly limit government programs and departments that are unnecessary, outdated, or are full of too much glut. Every government program gets increasingly bloated and expensive as time goes on, and it will continue to do so if there is not revolution or an active force combating it.
• Remove all religious persecution on the law books. The separation of church and state means faith-based institutions and leaders do not have direct political power. It has nothing to do with christmas trees, prayer in schools, putting a picture of Ghandi in a walkway, Halloween, or singing songs that may or may not have originated within a specific faith. It comes down to individuals and their beliefs, not institutions regulating these activities.

You can read more at slashdot

Labels: drugs, education, government, law, politics, rants, taxes, welfare

  ¶ 12:43 PM 3 Comments