Do people realize our consumer goods economy is somewhere in the vicinity of $6 trillion annually? If we charged, say, a 25% sales tax, that would net u to $1.5 trillion, enough to fund almost 50% of the federal government's obligations this year -- and that is with all of the bailouts.

By the way, to say that sales taxes are regressive is a red herring. It assumes that the same tax will be applied to everything. Read your Constitution -- Congress is authorized to levy excise taxes. Excise taxes can be levied on so-called luxury items at much higher rates than the ordinary sales tax. That's how you soak the rich, if you must (demands to soak the rich are nothing more than thinly veiled class envy and hate mongering anyway).

My treatise is still forthcoming, but I am scrambling to get caught up on homework after this fucking weeklong training with no internet.

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Wade, I sure would be interested in hearing more about your growth theories but please don't leave out stuff like the work ethic of the current labor force and their literacy capabilities. Or the ever stronger prescence of environmentalists influence on stopping industry advances. Also include the fact the baby boomers will be cashing in soon and pulling their retirement dollars out of the equation.

As for my contempt of the elitists in this country, well I rank them somewhere along with Pope Pius X on the scale of righteousness as they funnel their untaxed income into foreign bank accounts.

Come up with any tax system you like boys, but the common denominator in any system is the middle class will get stuck with the bill and continue to be unrepresented in Washington.

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Sorry, but no.

Okay, you can fund 1.5 trillion of government obligations, I concede that bit.

But you forget the other side of the tax.

Impose a tax and one of two things happens:
1. Those consumers have to pay more in the form of higher prices (the "sellers just pass it on" theory). And so they don't get to spend/invest the $$$ on other stuff.
2. The sellers profits fall (the "they don't need those stinking excess profits" theory). And so *they* don't get to spend/invest the $$$ on other stuff.

Either way, the reduction in spending opportunities under 1 and 2 is roughly, you guessed it, 1.5 trillion.

Now if you think that the government spends money more effectively/more productively than "consumers" or "capitalists", fine. But in that case, don't mess around with that phony tax idea. Just nationalize the crap out of consumption and capital.

About 15 years ago, I let my credit cards get out of hand. Eventually, after trying the really dumb idea of borrowing from Mastercard to pay Visa for awhile, I had to get money from mom to pay them off.

My debt got cleared up by "taxing" my mom. Hooray.

And my mother's spending possibilities got curtailed.

Taxes do not create value. They only redistribute it.

In my opinion, the response to those who would tax should have been my mother's response to me when I asked her to bail me out.

"No."

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Actually, DakotaT, I think you and I probably agree more than we disagree. I share your scorn for the elitists, for example. (Well, except for myself, of course? 🙂 )

And I think the mess that will come as we baby boomers age is going to make today look like an ice cream social.

Nor do I really underestimate the labor force. (Even though literacy has actually steadily declined in the USA since compulsory education was instituted in the late nineteenth century, the USA still has one of the most productive workforces per capita in the world, if not *the* most productive work force -- contrary to popular myth, china and england still lag a bit.

And as for the anti-economy actiions of the environmentalists...well, don't get me ranting on all that stuff.

My main objection here is on the notion that a "tax" -- any tax -- can ever be a solution to the kind of economic problems we face.

America is terminal unless it collectively remembers that its survival is contingent upon finding new ways of increasing overall wealth. And unless it collectively remembers that you increse overall wealth by finding ways of increasing productivity and harnessing creativity and innovation. You don't increase wealth by just taking out of one person's bank account and putting it in another.

Any tax, IMO, can be justified only if two things are true:
1. There are some people who are "more important" to the economy/system than other people. (The more important group become the ultimate recipients of tax recipients; the less important group become the tax payers.)
AND
2. You believe that the people collecting and distributing the tax revenues are better at deciding who those more important people are.

While I can see multiple reasonable determinations to #1 (not all of which agree with mine), I think that anyone who believes #2 is, at best, delusional.

Or to use DakotaT's phrase, living in a fairytale world.

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So did you pay your mom back with interest, no interest, or just took some early inheritence? I wish I had some options like that, just once. Luggage for my high school graduation and not a dime thereafter. No wonder I have this enourmous chip, huh.

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Eventually I started paying her back. I got a few years interest free. Now she has the mortgage on my house and I'm paying her back with interest. And making timely payments (its hard not to when the banker lives in house!)

So, yes, I've been very fortunate.

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I don't know Cliff Clavin, I love my mother, but I'm not moving in with her. My ears hurt for weeks when I just visit for a few a days. Which brings me to the dreaded building the mother in law suite someday. My father in law is a walking heart attack and I can see that happening. I'll just have to work eighty hour weeks all year instead of just half the year.

As for you taxes idea about freeing up disposable income, yeah that's a wonderful concept but how does society then pay the bills? When human nature first vice is sharing instead of greed then maybe we can talk about that.

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I was really hoping the argument would steer more in the direction of privacy and less paperwork than what is fair. Look, nothing is fair. There will never be a fair system. Ever. Socialism isn't fair. Capitalism isn't fair. Communism isn't fair. None of those 'isms ever will be fair no matter how much you try to make them fair.

Do you really want the government knowing how much money you make, and what you do with it?

Plus, do you want to be in Porforis' shoes? He's lucky it went as smoothly as it did. For some folks, it doesn't go so smoothly. The Nat'l Sales Tax prevents that crap from happening to you because there no longer is an income tax.

Also, when people say it can never happen, well, it reminds me of what Henry Ford said. He said something along the lines of if you believe you can do something or if you believe you can't do something, either way, you're right.

I remember arguing with some dumb chick (not being sexist, she really was a dumb chick) about medical marijuana. She started mockingly singing "it will never happen, it will never happen" like a fucking four-year-old. Well, a decade later, it's all over California as well as a slew of other states.

Don't ever say it can't happen unless you got a working crystal ball. If you do, invite me over immediately. Do you realize how much money we can make if we know the future?

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