Smoking cigarettes are a lifestyle choice as is living in the suburbs and driving to work therefore having the need to spend money I gas. As for the writing off stock losses, you can only write of $3000 of your capital gains taxes not your general tax liabilities.
Nice try, but if you abolish taxes you would have no revenue coming in to the government, therefore you wouldn't have a surplus and you would need to cut 3 trillion dollars from the budget which would result in the dismantling of the government, including the military which if attacked again you couldn't defend against because you have no military. Basically the Ron Paul Plan.
You have no comprehension of what I said. Personal income tax only brings in 1.2 trillion dollars a year. Other sources of income bring in nearly two trillion. Those other sources include Corporate income tax, Transfer taxes, Excise taxes, Payroll taxes, and others. You simply don't make all the money for the government by Income Tax alone. By cutting the personal income tax on all U.S. citizens you are cutting federal income by 1.2 trillion. That leaves 2 trillion still going into the government. Incidentally the government is currently over-budget by three HUNDRED billion dollars - right now. By cutting 1.5 Trillion in government spending you can immediately destroy the personal income tax, and still maintain a surplus. Furthermore by cutting the personal income tax, what will people do with that tax money? Spend it. They'll spend that extra 12,000 dollars they get to keep - states will earn more money this way, and so will the federal government because Corporations will be selling more, and there will be more trade. That means that there will be an adjustment at the level of a few hundred billion in government income, and the economy will reverse from tanking - going back to floating along quite nicely, as more investments will be made. In fact, by this point I wager that the surplus could very well be past the 500 billion mark, which is plenty to supply the military with hardware research and development, pay for social security for the time being until it is replaced, pay Medicare before its replacement, and finally keep things that will be more long-term in their abolishment steady and road mapped so there is no economic hardship. The poor will benefit from not being taxed through personal income, as they can actually keep more of their own money, the middle class will boom again and grow, as the middle class and the poor both keep income and can invest it or use it as they see fit. The economy will leap ahead as it becomes affordable for companies to use American labor, as that labor force is not taxed out the arse and will work for the wages they can keep. More people will want to work in the United States because of the tax system having no personal income tax, and the American Dream will be more accessible to hundreds of thousands of the disadvantaged. The Ron Paul plan is to have a better tax system, economic stronghold, and eventually a surplus with which to pay for any future wars. Right now the country is NINE TRILLION DOLLARS in debt. We cannot sustain this level and we cannot continue to borrow money from China and other countries. It will lead us to bankruptcy. If we raise taxes we will further stifle the economy and actually make less money as more people are out of a job. You cannot encourage people to work for less. We cannot sustain this constant war economy without serious consequences in the long run.
Exactly! We don't have a purely progressive tax system. We have elements of a progressive system and elements of a regressive system combined as a hybrid designed to influence the behavior and available financial choices of the population.
Taxes from individuals make up 50% of the Us Budget, the reason for the payroll taxes is an early collection system for individual income tax. Actual numbers: 2008 projections 1,146 billion - individual income taxes 275 billion - corporate income taxes 906 billion - social security taxes 81 billion - excise taxes 25 billion - estate and gift taxes 25 billion - customs duties 47 billion - miscellaneous receipts TOTAL - 2,506 billion http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdoc.cfm?index=4985&type=0&sequence=5 Now if you get ride of the individual income taxes you left with 1,360 Billion just enough to pay for Social Security and Medicare, as for the rest of government well there is no money to pay for that, let alone build a surplus.
Sounds good, just need to come up with another $200B for national defense, interstate roads, and a bare-bones version of the commerce department. The states can then raise any income taxes they want and institute any sort of public services they like. Then we would be approaching something resembling a constitutionally legitimate federal government.
All errors are corrected by the end of the post in the double checking. Revenues $2.66 trillion (2008) Expenses $2.9 trillion (2008) Personal Income Tax: $1.1 Trillion You take out the Personal Income Tax and you have $1.56 Trillion in income. You still have 2.9 Trillion in expenses. However: By cutting the wars off, you will save 190 billion this year. By cutting military bases off and pulling all forces from said bases and downsizing you save 200 billion(or more) while maintaining the military itself within our borders. You can cut 35 billion in state funded programs (pork spending) along with 34 from the Department of Homeland Insecurity (and then combine the CIA and FBI, saving money and providing the same service as one combined organization) 145 Billion from the “War on Terror†51 billion in “On Budget Discretionary†and 39 from “Off Budget†So far this is 694 Billion. Lets cut some more. A further 100 billion can be cut from Mandatory Spending as it is called from the “Other†category. Lets slap welfare and Unemployment as a states issue, and obliterate 224 billion from the federal budget. Each state can handle its own. Now lets make some more big cuts. Medicaid and SCHIP should be left up to the states: cutting 209 billion. Where are we at now? 1.227 Trillion. We just covered Income Tax alone. However, now we must consider the rest of the expenses. Medicare – left up to states BAM 386 Billion. U.S. Department of Education BAM 56 Billion (states should be in control of their own systems) US Department of Housing and Urban Development – BAM 35 Billion. Department of Agriculture (state responsibility) BAM 20 billion Department of Transportation – BAM 12 billion Where are we at now sparky? 1.736 Trillion cut. Leaving us with 1.164 trillion in spending. Social Security was untouched. How much in income? 1.56 Trillion. This leaves a 396 Billion Dollar surplus. And we aint even gotten rid of Social Security. Also, this does not account for the amount of tax gained from the additional spending on corporations, thus equaling well above the 500bn mark as I stated. Just to make sure my numbers are right: 386 224 209 200 190 145 100 56 51 39 35 35 34 20 12 1736bn Expenditures before cuts is 2.9 tril What can be cut 1.736 tril After Cut: 1.164 Total Income is 2.66 Tril Income tax is 1.1 tril After cut 1.560 1.560 1.164 396 Surplus. Again, with the economic improvement it will be well over 500bn from other tax sources. If Social Security were to bite the dust, that would make the number 1 trillion + a few billion in surplus. That will not happen right away though.
Not sure why we need a commerce dept, but I like the rest of your post. Yeah, but it doesn't have to be. That's the point. We don't need to be paying 80,000 Iraqis $10 a day to not fight us. We don't need to be defending Korea, Germany or Japan. That's not national defense. That's global imperialism. We have nukes. We have a large army. We have a lot of hardware. No one is going to touch us. It's not necessary to project force around the world, or spend $200 billion a year defending Israel's interests. Or anyone elses.
Brilliant post, thank you very much. Giuliani supporters like Soniq mock Ron Paul not realizing that getting to zero income tax is not as hard as it is made to seem. I'll never be able to understand people who want war, want cuts, and expect us not to finish going broke. Like ideological obsessiveness can be funded indefinitely.
It would be really simple and straightforward: "To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes; To establish ... uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States; To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures; (NOT outsource the responsibility to the Fed) To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States; " Those are about the only legal powers the federal government should have in regards to commerce anyway.
I think the Treasury does most of that already. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_the_Treasury 1. Recommends and implements the economic, fiscal, and currency policies of the President. 2. Regulates exports and imports. 3. Designs, prints, and mints, all authorized mediums of exchange used by the US Government, including Currency, Coins, Stamps, and Bonds. 4. Regulates all financial institutions chartered by the United States. 5. Collects all United States Revenue. 6. Enforces all US Laws of a financial nature. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Commerce Sounds like the department of economic intervention to me...
Well you could keep the treasury dept. only if you transferred the Census Bureau, International Trade Administration, and the Patent Office. It probably makes sense to keep one of the statistical branches open, too. Transparency and a wealth of financial data is probably a good resource toward attracting more investment capital. Of course, private industries would be likely to fill that responsibility but I think it would be worth it in the long run to make those types of records public. Treasury and Commerce could be merged into one agency that's smaller than either was originally
Ok, lets go over some of the Issues I foresee with your plan I doubt it cost us 200 Billion dollars to maintain bases around the world, and by some chance it did, I would highly suspect that some include the pay for soldiers as well which by closing the bases you still would have that expense. Also closing off the bases would not allow us to respond quickly to situation's that may develop. In your 145 Billion war on terror? Does that include the cost of operating the CIA and FBI that you want to cut from? One of the 34 departments of homeland security that you want to cut includes the immigration and boarder patrol. But then again who needs border patrol when you can save 2 billion dollars. Its not like anyone would want would to run across the border anyways right? I see that you shift a lot of responsibilities to the States, Medicare, Schip, Education, Transportation, agriculture Outside of the fact that it would be highly inefficients to have 50 departments of Agriculture doing something that one department could do. Since you shift the responsibilities to the States what stops the stats from raising taxes possible to federal levels (or more because of inefficiencies in the system) to cover the additional responsibilities that they will have to handle? Also since the states are increasing taxes, corporations would pay more taxes to the states which would offset the federal tax rate also cutting into your surplus. Also if you get ride of Social Security you would need to get ride of the Social security tax which would eliminate the trillion plus surplus that you expect to get. In the end your left with little or no surplus, and a weakened federal government unable to respond to fireups around the world.
Isn't global stability in the best Interest for the US and its citizens? If we remove our troops out of Korea what stops North Korea from attacking it and trying to take it over. Also Al-Qeada didn't care how many nukes we had, they still attacked us, because they didn't fear us. Its better to be feared in this world then loved.
Local Governments can handle Local Problems better than Massive Government. Unless you're a communist - you will agree. As for border patrol, by bringing all out military home and shutting down all outside bases we can then assign them to the borders. And I did not cut anything out of there that would affect anyone enlisted. That nearly 400bn surplus could be scalped a little and put back where it needs. When Social Security is done with and people have savings, that will save an additional 600+ billion. But seeing how that will take two generations or even three who are grandfathered into the system it will take longer. All local governments at the state and city level are BETTER at managing LOCAL ISSUES.
Its not about local issues only, for example wheat grown in the midwest is then shipped all around the united States but who will inspect the wheat, the agriculture inspectors in Iowa or the the agriculture inspectors in Ohio where the wheat could be going to, what if they create different standard, where the wheat standard in Iowa is unacceptable to the Wheat standard of Ohio sort of like how Canada doesn't allow our fruit in because it doesn't support the chemicals we use to spray on them and visa versa.
Then farmers will adapt to the market that they chose. I applaud Canada in saying no to chemically poisoned foods. Perhaps this system will be better than you think, seeing how more food will have less chemical taint.