-Caveat Lector-
William Hugh Tunstall wrote:
Nice try, Mr. Johnson, but you're in error. Bartlett
and Steele use figures from the OMB, the IRS and the
US Census Bureau... not the House Ways and Means
Committee and NOT the Tax Foundation!
MJ:
So Bartlett & Steele (fallacy of appeal to authority) READ
the IRS data BETTER than two independent sources that I
cited (three including Dr. Sowell)? 3 to 1.
William Hugh Tunstall wrote:
But if you will read my response to Mr. Howard Davis III,
I am on record for the abolition of the personal income
tax. There are a number of ways of raising revenue that
would not be so punitive on individuals.
MJ:
Actually ONLY individuals pay taxes. Corporations, businesses,
landlords, etc. merely collect taxes ... passing them along
to the individual.
*I* favor a head tax coupled with user fees. Each person pays
the SAME -- thus 'encouraging' low taxation/spending on the part
of government AND equality.
Regard$,
--MJ
About a century ago a group of brilliant Italian
scholars set out to study the nature of the state
and its monetary affairs. One of them, Amilcare
Puviani, tried to answer this question: If a
government were trying to squeeze as much money
as possible out of its population, what would it
do? He came up with eleven (11) strategies that
such a government would employ. They are worth
examining:
1. The use of indirect rather than direct taxes,
so that the tax is hidden in the price of
goods
2. Inflation, by which the state reduces the
value of everyone else's currency
3. Borrowing, so as to postpone the necessary
taxation
4. Gift and luxury taxes, where the tax accompanies
the receipt or purchase of 'something special',
lessening the annoyance of the tax
5. 'Temporary' taxes, which somehow never get
repealed when the emergency passes
6. Taxes that exploit social conflict, by placing
higher taxes on unpopular groups (such as the
rich, cigarette smokers or windfall profit
makers)
7. The threat of social collapse or withholding
monopoly government services if taxes are reduced
8. Collection of the total tax burden in relatively
small increments (a sales tax or income tax
withholding) over time, rather than in a yearly
lump sum
9. Taxes whose exact incidence cannot be predicted
in advance, thus keeping the taxpayer unaware of
just how much he is paying
10. Extraordinary budget complexity to hide the budget
process from public understanding
11. The use of generalized expenditure categories,
such as 'education' or 'defense' to make it
difficult for outsiders to assess the individual
components of the budget
Notice anything about this list? The United States
government uses every single one of those strategies
-- and so do most foreign governments. That just might
lead a cynical observer to conclude that the government
was actually 'trying' to soak the taxpayers for as much
money as it could get, rather than say, raising just
enough for essential functions.
In all these ways, government's constant instinct to
grow, to take on more tasks, to arrogate more power to
itself, to extract more money from the citizenry.
Indeed as Jefferson observed, "The natural progress
of things is for liberty to yield and government to
gain ground."
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