If you could do just one thing?
So, fellow objectivists, we all agree we are heading in the wrong direction. Here's an interesting exercise. If you could enact one change right now to begin to turn the ship of state in the right direction, what would it be. I'm torn between reinstituting the gold standard for currency (and in doing so, eliminating the Fed) and the REINS act.
I agree that contributors and producers should not be milked by looters who just vote their own benefits.
If the particular state legislature would realize that they were going to lose citizens, both private and corporate, they might just also realize that THEIR lavish compensation would also be threatened. It's easy to go along when you have no skin in the game; it's something else entirely when you must risk YOUR hide at the point of attack!
Arizona by the way is only 15% or so private land. But your comment on Senators elected by direct vote is dead right. First they are nothing more than Representatives At Large. When the attempts by States that had the recall failed to get rid of bad delegates it uncovered their other protector in the federal government. All politicians once elected to Washington DC become protected citizens of Washington DC. With their retirement benefits it's a life time job.l
GAWD bless Texas.
The Federal government would still be in the position of having to collect import duties, tariffs, and things of that nature which the states would be unable to do by themselves in any kind of equitable manner.
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What's the story there? (I didn't know that Mr. Obama was that old! LOL)
Jan
Another example: The Commerce Clause was tugged and stretched to cover the ACA (God knows how), the Supremes allowed it to stand as a tax, Mssrs Obama and Holder decreed that it is NOT a tax and ACA is the law of the land and will not be going away.
The greatest impact with the simplest change.
Eliminate all taxes except for tariffs on imports and sales tax. Remove them all at both the state and federal level.
Sales tax would be the same percentage for everyone regardless of income. NO other tax exists. No tax code at all, no deductions.
Business simply collects the sales tax on all goods sold and sends it in to local state and federal and your done.
Very little to no IRS. All investment and property taxes are gone. The economy would take off and growth would be very strong.
Perhaps more importantly the amount taxed would be highly visible to everyone. If the federal government charged 35% sales tax and the state 15% you would buy an item for $100.00 and pay 150.00 for at the check stand. The visibility of the level of taxation would change everything else. People would demand it.
In particular the ability to manipulate the useless idiots into voting for what the people in favor of giveaway programs would be hard pressed to convince those people that an increase in the sales tax was required.
You got it!
The inclusion of a BBA without those limiting processes is a fiction in the sense that it can't and won't do anything to 'limit spending,' per se.
The hard part about taxes is working out what's income. How fast can I depreciate a piece of equipment? If I'm buying something ,adding value, and selling it, do I record my costs FIFO or by some averaging formula? Once I find cost, Profit = Revenue - Costs. Multipying by a marginal rate is trivially easy. That's not what makes taxes complicated.
I agree taxes are needless complicated and a gravy train for accountants and attorneys, just not b/c of difficulty calculated tax owed using marginal rates.
how do we tilt THAT windmill?
This has to stop. The FED is the ultimate looter.
Going back on the gold standard isn't really the solution. All we really need is an interest free currency that serves as an honest unit of account that can't be created willy-nilly by some monopoly private entity. Competition in currencies must be made legal. Legal tender laws absolutely must be repealed.
When the power of the banking cartel is taken away, we will be able to regain control of our government and make it truly serve our best interests.
Until we accomplish that, all of our other efforts are the equivalent of peeing into a fan.
"The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the banks."
-Lord Acton
Every darn day we read about all the things wrong and share thoughts about "fixing" them, but while we're failing to tilt one windmill the Rulers are building four more.
The only solution possible is dissolving this government and seizing responsibility for ourselves.
Perhaps not so appealing to some, but the hard fact is that the Global Great Collapse is before us, which will put this (and probably all) governments out of business. At that point the whole planet could become "Galt's Gulch", and the likely-few survivors will take it from there...or not....! What else can do that?
The majority, those fools amidst us, surely cannot. I opt NOT to be Ruled, or to rule others!
I've said this often but will repeat again, my friend. "Greed" is an inappropriate slam, because it has it's limits. The dictionary definition for "Greed" is "excessive or rapacious desire, especially for wealth or possessions." In short, that is "desire". Folks will have their own opinion of what might be "excessive or rapacious" but so far as I know, there's nothing illegal about greed. However, when acting upon one's greed becomes theft, extortion, bribery or corruption, then one has a problem both moral and legal . Those wrongs are true of at least some politicians, right? That politicians supposedly are representing the People is a fallacy indeed. The real problem is with governments of force, which is ALL governments! GOVERNments can and do use Force, while we lowly slaves will be prosecuted for those crimes. This makes governments-all criminal by definition, and surely that makes most politicians criminal as well.
I submit that there be not a lone "citizen" who has specifically consented to be GOVERNed, which makes that a major breach of every part of contract common law. Just because some of our ancestors over 200 years ago wrote their words of tyranny on paper does not make any of that binding upon their children, does it? Any contract exists only by the agreement of two or more parties!
I also have much to say about taxes. I've not filed a 1040 in about 25 years now, without repercussion in any way. We know others who are ditto. Point -- "There is no Law!". Not filing is NOT the same as committing fraud by filing a false 1040 -- yes for that you can expect to be prosecuted.. Having done considerable research on the matter and published many findings, here are some: http://no-ruler.net/?s=tax+resistance.
Finally, it should be obvious that the only way to prevent absolute tyranny is to NEVER opt to be GOVERNed. That the horde of humans have allowed themselves to be Ruled by the motley Few who become Rulers from the beginnings of history is a paradox indeed.
Therefore, while there are many "starting points" with merit listed here, how many "fixes" do we get our Rulers to institute before this planet is hit with that Inevitable Great Collapse? We are seeing "NONE" -- WE have NO role in the so-called Balance of Powers! I am reminded of a line within the song "Old Man River" -- they're "Out A'makin' More" ... every day, and 98% of the 2012 voters fell for that! So much for brainwashing negating rationality!
History is replete with the failures of Rulers and their governments, empires, kingdoms... Always those had, and used, Force against their Subject/Slaves... those captives whom they so kindly call "Citizens" who shall be "Patriots"... right or wrong matters not. The bottom line is that most humans are Ruled by whom? Other humans who somehow are deemed to be superior elites.
Thus I say "Bring On the Collapse", which will in a way be the Galt's Gulch fantasize over. Frankly, I believe that this is your ONE solution! The question will then be, "Will the survivors have the rationale and the courage to never again opt to be GOVERNed!"
Look at it another way. If they DID throw us in jail, for a change all of us would benefit by seeing a worthwhile use of OUR tax dollars. We would be given free room and board, free meals, free medical care , free clothing, and virtually no real responsibilities. It would be the FIRST time I would see any good come of the dollars I've wasted by sending them to the federal government.
I think people seeing reality would cause them to demand spending cuts.
I would be really good if every time they pass a law or executive order responding militarily to something in Syria, increasing prison terms, providing a new drug benefit to the elderly, help refugees/immigrants coming to America, the very next week you would start paying the tax. Everything else in life we think if we want to do it and then how much is it going to cost me. If an individual goes mindlessly swiping a credit card at everything that sounds nice, he ends up in the financial situation of the US gov't.
This should get rid of old garbage from the book, ensure that laws do what they say they will and are tested according to the proven scientific method. It will also give Government something real to do rather than argue about what they "think" the right thing is.
Standard elections according to the law at the end of my "term" - with NO ONE now in office eligible to run.
Honest question here (not a disagreement)- how did our economy handle currency exchanges before the first national bank?
1. Term limits on all members of congress.
2. All spending bills must be accompanied with a method to fund it and must be a stand alone bill
Oh, and please include sunset features AND concrete 'measurables' to determine if the Bill has, in fact resulted in the achievement of its intended goals. No progress, let alone success milestones in year 1, 2, 5, 10, whatever... and the bill expires, the program dies and the agency is shut down.
I apologize for my combination of engineering degree, OCD and some ADD...
How's this for a starter, in semi-legalese... :
"No bill shall be written to achieve any goal without the Goal(s) being explicitly described in measurable terms and corresponding and appropriate milestones specified to measure the success achieved (versus time, for example) towards reaching the goal(s).
Methodology shall be established and specified Within The Text of The Authorizing Legislation as to who will 'do the measuring' and how the measurements against milestones' specifications will be made And Reported back to the General Public and the enabling Legislative Body."
I'm a designer, not an implementer. I've got a huge and long history of observing issues and identifying potential root causes and possible
'fixes,' but I'm terrible at implementing cures.
That was a Transparency Personal Disclosure. You don't get a lot of them, do you... even around here...?
:)
Retired now and loving it, since '02.
Engineers are cooler than most folks know...
:)
promptly went on vacation to Alaska, wearing my
Palin button. . they liked it up there. -- j
p.s. retirement IS all it's made out to be, if you
don't give in -- became a ham, traded Harleys,
editing books, all kinds of fun!
emphysema, I just pace myself. . it works. -- j
We ran to the lab to make sure they were ok (they were.. the explosion was contained under the chassis they were working on) but they couldn't hear anything we said to them for something like a half hour! They, like me, but for other reasons, probably are wearing hearing aids today.
:)
20 years ago I touched a grounded iron to a trace floating at 220VAC. It was "ground" on the board, and we tend to think of anything labelled "ground" as this mythical net of 0 V with respect to the universe. It went BANG, burnt some traces, and suddenly three people were standing by me saying "are you okay?" I must have lost a few seconds. Now I never take an iron to a powered board now, and I don't use the word "ground" except to mean a current path where current flows in a fault condition. Otherwise is it's power supply return, or signal return.
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