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More on taxes [UPDATED]
Published 8:53am Wednesday, October 3, 2012 Updated 12:56pm Wednesday, October 3, 2012Someone recently wrote that a flat tax with no deductions is unfair and punishes low income workers. We already have a flat tax; it’s called the FICA tax which funds Social Security and Medicare.
FICA is a 15.3 percent tax imposed upon each individuals earnings, starting at dollar one and going to $110,100.
You might say, that’s different because that money is used to fund our retirements, but that’s not true. The government has the legal authority to spend that money anyway it wishes, and it does. No individual has any legal claim to any money taxed through FICA.
What would happen if we had a 20 percent flat tax, starting at dollar one and going to dollar quazillion, with no non business deductions, period? All income would be taxed at the same rate, including corporate earnings, capital gains and welfare benefits.
At the same time, the United States should have to balance its budget every year. If we can’t get along on a particular tax rate, taxes should have to go up for everyone.
How many people would vote for spendthrift politicians if they knew that their taxes would be raised because of unwarranted spending?
The United States is in trouble because many people think they are getting something for nothing. For a few individuals, that may be true, but it isn’t true for most people. There is no free lunch and we can’t tax and spend our way to prosperity.
Most of our trillion dollar deficits are being paid for with printed money. The Federal Reserve and the Federal government are in collusion, debasing this nation’s currency.
The US Government is actively destroying the value of your earnings and savings. The true inflation rate today is probably about 7 percent. If that keeps up, within ten years a dollar will lose one half of its value. Are your wages going up that fast, what are your savings earning?
By the way, all that printed money is helping the stock market and pushing up commodity prices, one of the reasons the rich are growing richer.
Some say that we are saddling our children with debt that they are going to have to pay.
That may be true to some extent but in general, it’s pay as you go. Generally speaking, it’s coming out of us.
We are paying right now with higher inflation, lower wages and a crummy economy.
If you want a slow growing economy, if you want lots of inflation, if you want a value added tax on everything you buy, if you want big bank and big business cronyism, if you want someone to tell your kids what they can eat in school, if you want medical death panels and if you like the idea of a government boot on your throat. If you want all that and a lot more, be a good serf and vote Democrat.
Austin Culp
Battle Lake
Good grief, we already have a system where everyone pays the same rates. Let’s say that you earned a million dollars last year, you don’t pay 35% of the whole million dollars in for taxes, you paid 10% on the first $8700 (for singles, so as not to confuse the issue, we’ll keep in simple) and 15% on the next $27650, 25% on the next $50300, 28% on the next $90000, 33% on the next 209700, which should all add up to $388350, so you’d have to pay 35% on $611650. So someone like say a plumber who could command $100/hour, and he put in the 192 (I know there are only 168/hours in a week) hours a week for 52 weeks to earn it. I’d say he’s working pretty hard for it. Now, if someone doesn’t make that much, they don’t have to pay the higher rates. But if the idea is to get everyone to pay the same amount, that’s easy. You just pay everyone the same, and they’ll all pay the same in taxes – at least for those who are selling their labor.
Now take someone like Romney who was commiserating with the unemployed because, he too, was unemployed. So even though, by his own admission, he didn’t work, he still had an income in excess of $13 million, but because it’s not from labor, he doesn’t have to pay those rates. It would have been 15%, but through deductions and loopholes was 13.9% – on ALL of it. Why aren’t they paying the same rates as people who actually do work for a living? Are you sure you want to talk about serfdom?
But seriously, “The true inflation rate is probably about 7 percent.” And I mean that, seriously?? Oh Great Swami, where did get that figure from? Thin air? I thought as much, and yet you go on to prognosticate based on a number randomly generated? Fascinating! A quick google search will tell you that the highest overall inflation over the last 4 years is 3% and it’s currently at 1.7%. But wait, you said the “true inflation rate” – how could I have missed that? I think I see another conspiracy lurking. Maybe you’ll fill me in? And the “collusion” you referred to as well, if it’s not too much for a seer such as yourself. Is there anything in your diatribe that isn’t fanciful or delusional?