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If you have a government, you gotta have a military. It should be very well funded and respected. Unless you're thinking in terms of anarchy -- but the human race is way too immature to get that to work. Relative to your comments, I agree that less is more. But remember that it's a nasty world and the only way to be sure that you can keep the citizens safe (which is the truest function of government) is quick and total retribution. The only thing I admire Teddy R. for was his military attitude. When an Arab leader named Raizouli (Spelling?) kidnapped an American named Pedicaris, T. R. sent him a short message. "Pedicaris alive or Raizouli dead." Pedicaris was quickly found alive. That may not work today, but the attitude certainly would.
When I voted last Tuesday, I felt sorely tempted by the sight of Libertarian as a straight ticket option. But I wanted to damage the Dems as much as I could.
Should there be a GOP president and an IRS by the next midterm election, I do believe I'll be voting against the GOP too. The GOP still sends requests over the years for me to return as a party member. Bah!
You gotta earn me back first.
Yeah, I'm kinda thinking that too. You must be a full-fledged Libertarian.
I'm sliding that way, already calling myself a libertarian conservative as of a couple or more of years ago.
However that is fair because the rich have more property that the military defends, the mail comes to, interstate commerce benefits etc. so they should pay more for the protection and services.
People are duty bound to pay for the government tasks/powers that the Constitution explicitly lists. Not anything else.
Everything else the government took upon themselves (based on redefining "General welfare" in the taxation power to mean any powers to DO what ever they wanted) is THEFT and fraud .
Read this for the Fairest Tax. http://02f8c87.netsolhost.com/WordPress/...
defend my country with the defense $$,
and let me decide where to spend the welfare $$;;;
I might find a more worthy charity!!! -- j
One percent is far more than enough to accomplish the constitutionally required protection of individual property and rights.
And NEVER allow spending in excess of the amount stolen from consumers.
Banking sociopaths currently control America, and they did it by being the only source of credit (created from nothing, not from any assets from productive activity.)
Wiki has a list but no count https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fe...
Unless and until we can slay this monster, talking tax levels is meaningless.
A consumption tax is regressive, but until the point where people can not afford basic necessities (like food, clothes, shelter, etc. ) due to the incremental cost, it still taxes the affluent at a much higher rate. So despite the label, how is that unfair? Some necessities could be exempted from sales tax as is the case today in many states. This would lead to wrangling over where we draw the line between necessary food, clothing, and shelter VS caviar, designer jeans, and mansions. I think that's manageable. The more affluent will purchase more and pay more tax ( the spoils of their hard work, risk, effort, etc.) and subsidize the cost of government for those who either choose to or can not afford it.
The challenge for the moochers is that they cannot control the income stream as well as they can with and income based tax. Any consumption tax puts some decision making back in the hands of the consumer and makes the merchant the tax collector. I have actually considered taking a lower paying job to reduce the taxes that are confiscated, but that's a much greater sacrifice than not buying a fancy car or a yacht.
The bottom line is that you can't divorce a conversation about abolishing the IRS from a conversation about reducing the size of Federal Government. The government now behaves like any other business and is in the business of trying to get larger, more powerful, and more influential - the take over of health care being the most recent example. Unlike a business in a free market the government business can do all of this while performing abysmally in every competitive metric like efficiency, competitiveness, and quality which serve to keep private enterprise "honest".
From a tactical perspective, I think the best strategy for the LP is to propose abolishing federal income taxes from the ground up, starting at the lowest end of the income scale. Turn the 10% bracket into a 0% bracket and exempt the first $15,000 of earned income from the Social Security / Medicare payroll tax. It would mean that a full-time employee making the minimum wage of $7.25 per hour (about $15,000 per year) would pay no federal withholding tax at all.
A tax cut of this size and shape would be an immediate hit with minimum-wage workers (providing a 12% increase in their take-home pay) and would provide substantial tax relief to the middle class. Such a proposal would favorably contrast the Libertarian Party’s viewpoint with the Democrats’ “soak the rich” mentality and the Republicans’ “trickle-down” economics – our plan would be more of a “trickle-up” approach.
The annual “cost” to federal revenue would be $250 billion or less – around one-third the cost of the financial system bailout of 2008. Even without corresponding spending cuts, such a tax cut would probably score a net gain for the overall economy, increasing both consumer spending and investment. Such a “starve the beast” approach to tax-cutting would mean reducing government revenues first and then leaving it to the “deficit hawks” in Congress to enact corresponding spending cuts (or not, as they choose).
We need to translate our high-level goals (such as “abolish the IRS”) to incremental concrete proposals (such as “cut income taxes starting at the bottom”) that the public is more likely to support.