Connecting the FairTax Dots
I was asked last week about my views on the FairTax initiative. While I believed support for this scheme had run its course many years ago, I discovered that Neil Boortz, that annoying, hubristic, loud-mouthed scab on the face of Atlanta radio, had written a book shilling for the FairTax. While most of the country has long since forgotten, Atlanta is reminded daily of Boortz's book - and the FairTax.
So I did a minor bit of research among the economic academe, and came to the conclusion that I'd rather stick with the devil I know, than the devil I don't know. Concocted by several Houston, Texas businessmen, the FairTax was specifically engineered to exempt the wealthy from paying a proportionate share of taxes and dump the majority of the burden on the failing middle class - it's that simple. Do the math. You think there are loopholes in the tax code now? Ha!
Disregarding deficits and loans, the Government must take in x dollars for x dollars spent. It's not hard arithmetic to follow. Every cent the Government spends has to come from somewhere, and manipulating the sources/victims of funding is not addressing the root problem. Don't want to pay more taxes?
STOP SPENDING MONEY LIKE A DRUNKEN SAILOR!
It's that simple.
Almost a trillion in Iraq, 30 billion in "aid" for Lebanon, and ongoing fraudulent no-bid contracts with special interest contractors who defraud taxpayers out of billions more. Staggering, record setting national debt and trade deficits which steadily encroach on our GNP due to the 60,000 factories moved to China since 2000. Ridiculous subsidies to huge oil, gas, and power monopolies while at the same time deregulating their operation - resulting in power outages across the US which are directly attributable to poorly maintained and failing infrastrutures. Ludicrous, publicly funded, red-herring "switch grass" alternative fuel strategies which have long been proven to be negative net energy balance ponzi-schemes. Every time one of these lobbyist elected morons jumps up to make some ideological stand, it costs US taxpayers billions more. These idiots are incapable of making realistic decisions pertaining to science, finance, national security, or much of anything else. Where does it end?
A more interesting initiative would be for conservatives to actually be... well... conservative. For all the whining I hear about tax and spend liberals, it appears that neo-cons are even more fond of tax and spend - as long as it goes in to their special-interest constituencies' pockets. At least liberals traditionally put the money into social services and, yes, the dreaded welfare state.
So while we spend hundreds of billions on pointless, endless ideological wars in the middle east, obsess over flag burning, abortion, and gay marriage amendments, the country is hurdling down the tracks of class warfare and Casey Jones is out cold at the controls.
Perhaps sitting in traffic sucking up carbon monoxide for 4 hours a day numbs your brain. Or maybe it's the constant chime of cell-phone ringtones and the endless chit-chat that consumes every waking moment of most Americans, or the embarrassingly infantile press and media, or the mediocre schools that fail to teach anything of lasting merit - short of greed, fear, and competition. More likely, it's all of the above. But whatever it is, damnit people, Wake Up!
The current cabal of neo-cons and just about every financial scheme they regurgitate exists but for one purpose - to profit at the expense of the working class. How soon the populace has forgotten the mining towns and company stores of yesteryear, and how quickly we are racing towards reinstituting these abominations. The Barons of Wall Street are not working for this country's best interests, they are feverishly working for their own. And their incessant pandering to religious and xenophobic interests is purely selfish in nature. But like a young bride dumped at the alter, left to ponder how she could have been so gullible, these misguided zealots have been duped - for avarice knows no moral bounds.
Update July 26, 2006
March of the 'Fair Tax' Sheep - John F. Sugg
So I did a minor bit of research among the economic academe, and came to the conclusion that I'd rather stick with the devil I know, than the devil I don't know. Concocted by several Houston, Texas businessmen, the FairTax was specifically engineered to exempt the wealthy from paying a proportionate share of taxes and dump the majority of the burden on the failing middle class - it's that simple. Do the math. You think there are loopholes in the tax code now? Ha!
Disregarding deficits and loans, the Government must take in x dollars for x dollars spent. It's not hard arithmetic to follow. Every cent the Government spends has to come from somewhere, and manipulating the sources/victims of funding is not addressing the root problem. Don't want to pay more taxes?
STOP SPENDING MONEY LIKE A DRUNKEN SAILOR!
It's that simple.
Almost a trillion in Iraq, 30 billion in "aid" for Lebanon, and ongoing fraudulent no-bid contracts with special interest contractors who defraud taxpayers out of billions more. Staggering, record setting national debt and trade deficits which steadily encroach on our GNP due to the 60,000 factories moved to China since 2000. Ridiculous subsidies to huge oil, gas, and power monopolies while at the same time deregulating their operation - resulting in power outages across the US which are directly attributable to poorly maintained and failing infrastrutures. Ludicrous, publicly funded, red-herring "switch grass" alternative fuel strategies which have long been proven to be negative net energy balance ponzi-schemes. Every time one of these lobbyist elected morons jumps up to make some ideological stand, it costs US taxpayers billions more. These idiots are incapable of making realistic decisions pertaining to science, finance, national security, or much of anything else. Where does it end?
A more interesting initiative would be for conservatives to actually be... well... conservative. For all the whining I hear about tax and spend liberals, it appears that neo-cons are even more fond of tax and spend - as long as it goes in to their special-interest constituencies' pockets. At least liberals traditionally put the money into social services and, yes, the dreaded welfare state.
So while we spend hundreds of billions on pointless, endless ideological wars in the middle east, obsess over flag burning, abortion, and gay marriage amendments, the country is hurdling down the tracks of class warfare and Casey Jones is out cold at the controls.
Perhaps sitting in traffic sucking up carbon monoxide for 4 hours a day numbs your brain. Or maybe it's the constant chime of cell-phone ringtones and the endless chit-chat that consumes every waking moment of most Americans, or the embarrassingly infantile press and media, or the mediocre schools that fail to teach anything of lasting merit - short of greed, fear, and competition. More likely, it's all of the above. But whatever it is, damnit people, Wake Up!
The current cabal of neo-cons and just about every financial scheme they regurgitate exists but for one purpose - to profit at the expense of the working class. How soon the populace has forgotten the mining towns and company stores of yesteryear, and how quickly we are racing towards reinstituting these abominations. The Barons of Wall Street are not working for this country's best interests, they are feverishly working for their own. And their incessant pandering to religious and xenophobic interests is purely selfish in nature. But like a young bride dumped at the alter, left to ponder how she could have been so gullible, these misguided zealots have been duped - for avarice knows no moral bounds.
Update July 26, 2006
March of the 'Fair Tax' Sheep - John F. Sugg
posted by Dr. Know at 3:04 AM
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