Tax and Charity

End of the Income Tax Would Increase Charity
By Daniel G. Jennings
Contrary to popular belief, abolishing the federal income tax and adopting a national sales tax such as the Fair Tax* would increase the amount of money donated to charities.
The standard argument given by income tax apologists is that a lot of people donate to charity for tax deductions. This of course is true, a lot of people get tax deductions by donating but most charitable giving is motivated by other factors.
Stanford Business school writer Robert Reich estimates that 60 percent of the money donated to American charities goes to religious entities.** So most of this charity is motivated by faith not by a desire for a deduction. Since people are not going to stop believing or supporting their houses of worship after the income tax is abolished these donations are not going to stop.
Other charitable donations are motivated by a desire to help or interest in a particular cause. People give money to a drive to fund research to cure a disease because somebody they know has that disease. Or to victims of a disaster they see on TV. Since compassion isn’t about to disappear neither will these donations.
Then there is the fact that contrary to popular belief most charitable donations in America are made by working and middle class people who receive no tax benefits from giving. Studies indicate that working people give more and a greater percentage of their income than the wealthy.
It is hard to determine how much different social classes give because a large percentage perhaps a majority of Americans who make charitable donations don’t itemize those donations. Most Americans make their contributions on an informal ad hoc basis, they drop money in the collection plate or in a collection jar at the super market. Or they buy cookies from a local kid or the folks at the table in front of Wal-Mart very few of them remember how much they give or to whom they gave, let alone itemize it.
To make matters worse people who itemize may actually donate less than those who don’t. To see my point, take the hypothetical example of two imaginary ladies: Alice the waitress and Juanita the real estate agent. Both Alice and Juanita are hardworking and devout church goers. Both give around $2,000 a year to their church but they do it differently. Alice gives the old fashioned way - when she has a few extra bucks say from tips she drops some of them in the collection plate. Juanita writes checks to the church so she can have a record of her giving for an itemized deduction.
This means that Juanita will be able to deduct 35 percent of her deduction from her income tax so she’s actually only donating $1,300. Alice who doesn’t itemize her cash contributions donates the full amount. Although on paper it looks like they’re donating equal amounts, the working woman is actually donating more money to the church than the business lady and receiving no tax benefits for it. This obviously isn’t fair or just.
Okay, now some people will say can’t Alice just start itemizing her donations and get the benefit? If Alice were receiving her income from a salary that might be possible, but remember Alice is a waitress. Much, if not most of her income comes in the form of cash tips. If she were to itemize there’s a good chance she would increase her reportable income and her family’s tax burden. If she doesn’t itemize, Alice can keep all the extra tip income and use it to improve her family’s lifestyle and support her church.
What this demonstrates is that if average people are allowed to keep their entire paychecks they can’t under our current tax system. They would have more money to spend and more to donate to charity. Charitable donations would increase dramatically under a system such as the Fair Tax because the people who do the giving would have more to give.

*www.fairtax.org
** For a detailed account of how tax inspired charity actually hurts the poor and helps the affluent see Reich’s paper “A Failure of Philanthropy: How American Charity Shortchanges the Poor and Public Policy is Partially to Blame” in the Stanford Social Innovation Review’s Winter 2005 issue. It was included in the Stanford Business School’s Knowledgebase Newsletter for February, 2006, and is available online at www.gsb.stanford.edu

Shut Down Homeland Security

Shut Down Homeland Security
By Daniel G. Jennings
The most logical response Congress could make to the federal government’s catastrophic failure to effectively respond to Hurricane Katrina would be to shut down the Department of Homeland Security.
The chaos in the Gulf and in New Orleans proves that the Department of Homeland Security is a miserable failure. It was unable to cope with the disaster and its effects, and unable to help the people of Gulf. While the Homeland Security bureaucracy failed miserably traditional agencies like the military, churches, private charities and business were able to respond effectively.
The conclusion to be drawn from this is an obvious one: the Department of Homeland Security doesn’t work and actually hinders effective response to emergencies. Instead of providing a central agency to respond to crises, Homeland Security is nothing but another layer of bureaucracy that blocks effective government response. Homeland Security combines dozens of agencies that have little or nothing in common. Many of these agencies have functioned effectively for generations or centuries yet they don’t work under the new system.
The United States survived a Civil War, Two World Wars, a Cold War, a Great Depression and hundreds of other catastrophes without a Department of Homeland Security. Why do we need such an entity now? How come the FBI that effectively protected our national security from the Nazis and the KGB can’t stop terrorism? Why does the military that has won dozens of wars need Homeland Security to fight terrorism?
Okay, maybe we need somebody to function as a central decision maker in times of national emergency to allocate resources and make decisions. Oh but the Constitution already provides a person like that, the office is called President. It’s the job of the White House to respond to national crises and provide leadership, not to delegate responsibility to some new cabinet department. With modern communications technology it should be possible for the President and his advisors to monitor and respond to any situation. I.E. instead of asking for a report from Homeland Security the President could pick up the phone and call the folks in the Gulf States and ask what’s going on, or simply turn on the TV and watch the news. So why do we need a Department of Homeland Security or a Secretary of Homeland Security?
The logical conclusion then would be to abolish Homeland Security and go back to the previous system which worked. Unfortunately we won’t be able to expect logical behavior from Congress, especially when there’s a big new bureaucracy to generate lots of pork barrel spending involved.
Shutting down Homeland Security would also create a precedent Congress doesn’t want set if we can shut down one ineffective federal bureaucracy why not others? Why do we need a Department of Veterans’ Affairs (the number of Veterans is actually decreasing as World War II and Cold War vets die off)? A Department of Education or a Department of Transportation (the one federal transportation system Amtrak is a national disgrace)? Or what about lesser agencies, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (shouldn’t Native Americans be able to take care of themselves, they survived just fine without the great white bureaucrats for thousands of years?) for example?
The truth of course is that logic doesn’t apply in Washington only the desire for bigger and bigger government does. I wonder how much more suffering average Americans like the people of New Orleans will have to endure before the politicians get the message that big government doesn’t work. It never has and it never will.

The Long Emergency: Book Commentary
By Daniel G. Jennings
The following is a book commentary not a book review, “The Long Emergency”* by James Howard Kunstler, is an excellent book that raises important issues that every thinking person should read. Instead of reviewing my friend Jim’s well written and intelligent if a little hysterical book I’ll analyze some of the arguments he raises.
Kunstler’s main argument is that modern civilization is about to collapse largely because of depletion of important energy resources, namely oil and natural gas (and the natural gas shortage maybe a bigger crisis than oil). He mentions a few other possible causes including disease and global warming. Some equally destructive phenomena such as Cultural Marxism and the growing Muslim/non-Muslim conflict in Europe are not mentioned.
Our present day society is impossible without abundant supplies of cheap oil and natural gas that’s a fact Kunstler wisely points out. Kunstler also correctly notes that worldwide production of oil and natural gas has hit it’s peak and will obviously decline. He also rightly notes that we don’t have any sort of alternative fuel waiting in the wings that can do for us what oil does. Hydrogen, solar, wind, nuclear, hydroelectric hold interesting possibilities but they have their limitations and as Kunstler points out require large amounts of cheap oil to produce.
Since oil powers the automobile which is the primary means of American travel which will lead to the collapse of our society. Most American communities are built around the car and most people can’t get around them without one.
Kunstler believes that the energy shortage will return us to a more primitive age. Horses will replace tractors on the farm, global capitalism will collapse large corporations will go under, world trade will cease, and many large cities will become uninhabitable. Kunstler goes even farther predicting the collapse of the United States and the return of feudalism in which many Americans will be peasants working the land.
Now I believe that this is a worst case scenario an example of the catastrophe that could happen if we do nothing. Personally, I don’t believe the Long Emergency is a likely outcome of the end of cheap oil which will happen sooner than we want. This nightmare scenario sounds a great deal like the doom saying of my youth, remember “The Mad Max Movies,” “The Day After”etc. Kunstler’s post oil America sounds a great deal like the post apocalyptic Australia Mad Max roams in his souped up V-8 (at least in the first two movies, by the third film he’s herding camels across the Outback).
A much more likely outcome is a contracted America where Americans drive a lot less, fly a lot less, live in smaller homes and enjoy a lot less military power and influence in the world. Americans thirty years from now won’t be hoeing potatoes or using mules to plow fields, more likely they’ll be living like present day Japanese.
That is in crowded, contracted, energy efficient cities highly reliant upon mass transportation and electricity. Instead of McMansions, Americans will be living in apartments or row houses within walking distance of train stations. Traditional suburbia having been abandoned or bulldozed to make way for New Urbanism. Instead of driving a large percentage of the population will be taking the train or the bus to work. Instead of driving to Wal-Mart to shop they’ll call or e-mail Wal-Mart or whatever and some sort of delivery truck will bring the merchandise to them. In such a society a large percentage of the population will be wrapped up in electronic entertainments such as video games and movies.
The electricity the new America runs on will be generated most likely by nuclear fission. Although new technology such as solar energy beamed down from orbiting satellites or fusion might be replacing fission by then. Since cities will be more compact homes and businesses are likely to be heated by some sort of central municipal heating system using steam or water heated at a central plant a plant that could run on coal or biomass or oil or nuclear. Such systems are already widely in use in Russia and Northern Europe.
Transportation in the future will be electric powered trains or perhaps magnetic levitation trains many of which will run at incredibly high speeds. Since such rail systems are far more efficient than trucking and planes, transportation will be cheaper and more efficient than ever before. Wal-Mart’s warehouse on wheels is likely to become the warehouse on rails. Cars will still be around but there are likely to be less of them but they will still likely run on gas and diesel but are likely to be hybrids or use fuel cells. In town people will rely on buses, taxi cabs, light rail and subways as well as bicycles and scooters of all sorts.
The energy crisis is likely to make agriculture more industrialized than ever before. Agribusiness will be able to afford to switch to energy sources, the family farm won’t. Electric rail will make transportation more efficient so the 2,500 mile salad will be cheaper and more plentiful than ever before. What differences robotics and genetic engineering in future agriculture will make we don’t know. Although walking robots (they actually exist in Japan right now) and genetic engineering may make the small scale agriculture Kunstler dreams of workable.
Around the world, America is likely to be China’s junior partner in the occupation and liquidation of Africa and the Middle East. Much as Britain became America’s junior partner by mid 20th Century.
There is an element of bucolic fantasy, in “The Long Emergency” Kunstler seems to want to return to a simpler time. An era of small towns, localized agriculture and real communities. This seems like wishful thinking, such traditional American communities were rife with racism, religious intolerance, economic exploitation, violence and corruption among other things.
Although in his book, Kunstler points out such an era is likely to be one of religious fanaticism, neofeudal exploitation, racism and fragmentation of society. He largely ignores other aspects such as banditry, warlordism, which would also manifest themselves. One probable outcome of such a class would be the rise to power of some of feudal warrior elite, the people with the guns (probably gang members) would seize control and force the rest of us do all the work for them. That’s what happened in Europe during the dark ages.
Despite it’s problems “The Long Emergency” is an excellent warning of the crises we face if we do nothing. It’s well worth a read and a lot of thought and conversation from Americans and people around the world.

* “The Long Emergency: Surviving the Catastrophes of the 21st Century” by James Howard Kunstler, New York, Atlantic Monthly Press 2005.

France's dilemma

France’s Dilemma
By Daniel G. Jennings
If there is one group of people in the world today that I feel sorry for it is the ruling classes of France, in particular that republic’s president, Jacques Chirac. For France faces a profound crisis that could determine the fate of that nation and of Europe itself.
The crisis manifested itself last year in the form of deadly and destructive riots when mobs of mostly Islamic young men, the sons of North African and other immigrants, rampaged through the streets of many French cities burning and destroying. These men were rioting because they feel they have no real future, they have little opportunity to get decent jobs, few prospects of starting a business to pull themselves out of the ghetto, and they face cultural, religious and racial discrimination on a daily basis. The French elite prattles on and on about liberty, equality and fraternity and multiculturalism then shows it’s true stripes by relegating Moslem immigrants to sweeping floors and cleaning toilets.
Unlike in the United States the immigrants have neither economic opportunity or any prospect of assimilation into wider society. Racism and French notions of cultural superiority (often cloaked in Neo Marxist rhetoric about multiculturalism) effectively bar nonwhites, non Catholics and non Europeans from participation in French society, French socialism deprives the immigrants of any economic opportunity. In the US a thriving capitalist economy and strong traditions of liberty have effectively thwarted Cultural Marxist attempts to trap immigrants in the multicutlural ghetto in France Cultural and Economic Marxism has worked and effectively trapped large segments of the population in the multicultural ghetto of public housing, welfare and no future.
To this dismal situation we can add an economy that doesn’t function, an aging population and a welfare state that is breaking down. The Islamic youth of France face a double whammy not only are they discriminated against, they face a future of menial labor to support a growing number of French retirees. The idea of bringing all those immigrants into France wasn’t to create a multicultural society it was to provide cheap labor to support the tourism industry and the middle class lifestyle guaranteed to Frenchmen by the welfare state. The immigrants were promised a middle class lifestyle and now face a future of sweeping floors, waiting tables and changing bed pans.
French leaders created this mess now they can’t find their way out. One solution would be to do what the British have done under Maggie Thatcher and Tony Blair effectively dismantle the socialist economy and scale back the welfare state. In other words return to capitalism and let the market loose. In a market economy the hard working immigrants would probably prosper but the Frenchman used to month long vacations and 30 hour work weeks wouldn’t. The French politicians would hear nothing but complaints of why am I riding the bus while the damned Arabs are driving around in their new Mercedes?
This would be an effective solution but it would take decades perhaps generations to work. It would also be politically impossible in France, French intellectuals are too attached to their Marxism, average French to their welfare benefits. They would react violently to such attempts, the rioting mobs of Muslims in the streets would be replaced by rioting mobs of French men.
If the French voters or intellectual elite don’t support or accept needed capitalist reforms one likely outcome is a limited dictatorship like that of Vladimir Putin or Augusto Pinochet in France. Such a dictator would force reforms upon the country at gunpoint and selectively use terror and oppression against radicals. This would mean an end to French democracy but it is in keeping with French traditions remember Charles De Gaulle, Marshal Petain and the two Napoleons. Already ready at least one potential French strongman is on the horizon, the paratrooper turned rabble rouser Masseur Le Pen, however he is probably too old be an effective leader.
Another possible solution would be to try and kick all of those Muslim immigrants out of France. That too would be impossible, France’s new economy now depends upon the cheap labor of all those immigrants. Who do you think changes the beds at all those hotels the American, Japanese and Chinese tourists stay at and cooks the meals and washes the dishes in those four star restaurants? Hint they aren’t French. Unless the French want to return to such tasks themselves this would be impossible. Note even then it might not work the declining birthrate means there might be not be enough French people to fill all those jobs.
Then there’s the South African or Israeli solution, impose some sort of Apartheid style system in which military and police oppression would be used to keep the Muslims in their places. This of course would play right into the hands of Islamic extremists by making Muslim youth angrier and justifying their violence. It would undermine France’s moral authority and wouldn’t work in the long run. It didn’t work in South Africa and in Israel the Jewish state has had to effectively segregate Palestinians into their own “state” (In reality an Indian reservation for Palestinians) to make it work.
Now dictatorship, deportation or Apartheid would only work if the French had the military power to enforce it. So would a change to capitalism order would still have to be maintained for reforms to work. The truth is they don’t, part of the reason the riot got out of control was that France didn’t have enough soldiers or tanks to send into the streets and put down the riots. France’s military was able to protect only a few key locations like central Paris (despite official claims otherwise, news footage from the City of Light clearly shows French soldiers with automatic weapons patrolling the Champs de Elysees).
This brings us to another dilemma: where does France get the soldiers and cops it needs to stop the violence? France’s draft is history and with it the vast armies of conscripts that were the backbone of the French Army since the time of the Revolution. I suppose the French government could bring back the draft but a large percentage of those drafted would be the angry young Muslims who are reeking havoc in the first place. It makes little sense to give these people access to weaponry and military training. One danger is that Islamic extremists would eagerly sign up for the French army, after all it would give them access to guns and deadlier weapons.
Okay, maybe France can do what South Africa did. Only draft certain segments of the population white Christian and Jewish Frenchmen. Then use them to keep down the Muslims that would lead to a permanently divided society and set the stage for a Yugoslavia style civil war. Another solution would be to increase the size of the professional French army, unfortunately the only pool of recruits available would be Young Muslim men - the very people the French elite is afraid of.
Then there’s always the grand tradition of the Foreign Legion, an army of foreign citizens that France used as a colonial police force in the 19th and 20th Centuries which still exists. France could expand the Foreign Legion and use it to put down the rioters. The problem with this is it would require bringing in more immigrants whose children would simply recreate the crisis facing France now. Another danger would be that the imported soldiers, say poor Africans, would effectively be in control of France or large areas of the country. How long would it be before the Legionnaires would be going around shaking down French citizens, tourists and businesses for protection money and knocking white men around for kicks? How long before the Legionnaires would demand a French middle class lifestyle and their families? How long before the sergeant major of the Paris garrison would tell the President of the Republic: quadruple our pay and give us full welfare benefits or we won’t protect you and your cabinet from the Muslims who are setting the guillotine up outside the building.
What France will do? I don’t know, but I feel sorry for the French people. They find themselves in a tragedy of their own making from which there maybe no way out.
One prediction here over the next few years expect large numbers of French people to emigrate to the US and Canada because they feel they are no longer safe in their homeland. Many of these immigrants will be France’s cultural, political and economic leaders who will quietly flee to America with their money, leaving their poorer countrymen to reap the whirlwind they have sown. Hopefully we Americans won’t welcome these charlatans with open arms.

Free speech

Free Speech in a War on Terror
By Daniel G. Jennings
One of our most important rights, Freedom of Speech could become one of the major casualties of the War on Terror.
Sadly enough Freedom of Speech’s gravediggers maybe the well intentioned artists and journalists who claim to be standing up for and practicing freedom of speech rather than any would be tyrant or terrorist. Recent news stories point to two prime examples of how the times in which we live and the irresponsible behavior of a few threaten the rights of all.
In the United States we have the so-called surveillance scandal in which The New York Times and other media outlets have revealed many of the details of the National Security Agency’s program to collect intelligence about terrorists and would be terrorists. A deadly enemy has been tipped off about the details of our intelligence gathering efforts through the actions of self proclaimed journalists.
These journalists are decent and honorable people who are convinced they are doing the right thing. Yet they are seriously endangering our war on terror. Can we fight such a war and allow journalists the freedom to report on its details? In past wars we have kept the media in dark about stories and occasionally suppressed their activities. What happens if a journalist discovers the details of a plan to capture or kill Bin Laden and plans to expose them, how far should the government go? Should the government jail that reporter?
Over in Europe we have something more complex and troubling. A Danish newspaper published cartoons insulting and lampooning the Prophet Mohammad. An action that most Muslims consider sacrilege. A number of other European publications repeated this action. This inflamed Muslims around the world and led to deadly riots, and could inspire terrorist attacks on those countries.
Now should the European governments crack down and perhaps ban such cartoons thus infringing upon free speech? That’s a tough question, because the cartoons are legitimate expression of opinion or art but a legitimate case can be made for banning them. During World War I, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes justified limits on free speech in war time by citing the example of a man who falsely shouts the word “fire” in a crowded theater in a deliberate effort to create a panic. Like Holmes’ hypothetical loudmouth, the European cartoonists are not adding anything to political debate or culture but they are putting real people in danger. So a legitimate case can be made for suppressing those cartoons.
There are precedents for suppressing free speech in wartime. During the US Civil War deadly riots broke out in a number of Northern Cities over the draft particularly in New York City where thousands were killed. In 1864, a Manhattan newspaper published false stories that claimed another draft was imminent. President Abraham Lincoln concerned about this ordered the federal marshal to padlock the newspaper’s doors to keep it from publishing.
It’s not hard to imagine some European leader, quite probably a Social Democrat and former student protestor ordering his or her police force to shut down newspapers and websites in face of rioting or terrorist attacks. Nor is it hard to imagine an exasperated US president asking the Attorney General to have the FBI arrest journalists with too much knowledge of intelligence gathering methods.
The question we have to ask ourselves is free speech a fundamental right or an expensive luxury we can’t afford in the terrible times in which we live? A question our forebears asked and answered by sacrificing freedom of speech.

Cultural Marxists

Cultural Marxism’s Main Goal: The Destruction of Privacy
By Daniel G. Jennings
Many people ask what the political movement called Cultural Marxism wants. The major goal of Cultural Marxism is a simple and obvious one: the destruction of individual privacy.
The goal of Economic or Traditional Marxism is the destruction of private property to place property under state ownership so those who control the state control all the property and the economy. Naturally, these people will be the Marxists under the Marxists’ plans, the Marxists’ never seem to ask what will happen if their enemies get control of the state and the economy. A prime example of Marxist “success” was Nazi Germany where Hitler and Company used the methods pioneered by the Marxists to impose their dogma on society.
The Cultural Marxist wants to abolish individual privacy for the same reason the Economic Marxist wants to abolish private property. If individual privacy is abolished the state and those who control it will have control over everybody’s lives.
Take gay rights one of the Cultural Marxists’ major concerns, just 15 or 20 years ago a person’s sex life was his or her business. If individuals wanted to practice homosexuality in the privacy of their own homes, nobody cared. Those practicing homosexuality had the same rights as everybody else as long as they didn’t hurt anybody.
Today of course, Americans seem to be obsessed with homosexuality because of the Cultural Marxists’ gay rights agenda. A person’s sexuality is now a public matter and a public concern. For example benefits for same sex partners, if Joe and Willy are heterosexual and roommates and cheapskates they can claim to be gay so Joe can get benefits from Willy’s job. How does anybody determine if Willy and Joe are really gay or not without invading their privacy?
Since gays are now a state protected minority, I suppose the state now has the right to enter the bedroom and determine if those who claim to be gay really are having sex with individuals of the same sex. Do we really want this?
What happens to gays if some Hitler type maniac gets elected on the gay bashing ticket? Will he have a list of gays and suspected gays to sic his storm troopers upon thanks to gay rights?
Thanks to political correctness we have a similar policy upon race. Until Affirmative Action, it was possible for African Americans who didn’t appear to be too physically black to “pass as white.” That is they moved to another part of the country and didn’t tell anybody they were black. These individuals could escape racism and discrimination and improve their lives.
Many other minorities, Native Americans in particular did this. (How many people realize that James Gardner and Burt Reynolds are American Indians and Elvis Presley was legally a Native American or that Yul Brynner was Asian?) These people were able to do this because nobody was actually checking to see if they were what they said.
Now that we have Affirmative Action and people are given privileges because of their race. Privacy about racial background is a thing of the past. People’s racial backgrounds are being checked out in a manner disturbingly reminiscent of Nazi Germany. Just ask University of Colorado Professor Ward Churchill, reporters are checking into his ancestry because he claimed to be part Cherokee to get a job.
Worse people are being placed into racial and cultural ghettos because of their backgrounds. African American people must act “black” in order to get the benefits of affirmative action. Asians, Native Americans, etc. must act like victimized minorities rather than individuals. For example, a Chinese American who is proud of his or her heritage and ancient culture which has a strong historical basis must abandon that heritage and accept the status of Asian American. A meaningless category created by politically correct bureaucrats a couple of decades ago.
That of course is the real goal of Cultural Marxism and Political Correctness to abolish individual identity and privacy by placing everybody’s lives under the control of the Cultural Marxist Elite. In other words everybody will become a slave, a person whose destiny is under the control of somebody else, namely the Marxists or as in the German case somebody worse. One can only hope the Marxists themselves will be the first to feel the whip on their back when they finally build the plantation they plan to call a utopia.

Teachers and Taxes

Math Teachers and Taxes
By Daniel G. Jennings
I see from press accounts that our illustrious leader, President George W. Bush would like to recruit tens of thousands of new mathematics teachers to tutor our young in basic math. This goal is laudable but I don’t see where Bush is going to find all those teachers, after all people with mathematical knowledge can make far more money working with computers or preparing taxes than by teaching.
Unless, Mr. Bush wants to abolish the income tax and replace it with something more sensible. Think of it this way, hundreds of thousands of mathematically-minded Americans make their living preparing taxes, or more precisely telling other Americans how not to pay taxes, either as Certified Public Accountants or as tax preparers of some sort.
Replace the income tax with something simple and sensible and these people would have to go out and seek new jobs. The only job besides accounting many of them would be qualified for would be teaching math to our kids.
Yes, many of these people would have to take a considerable drop in income but who would feel sorry for them? Not I. Nor I imagine would the millions of Americans who fork over a percentage of their hard earned income to get their taxes done each year.
This of course would be one upside of getting rid of the income tax. Suddenly there would be a pool of hundreds of thousands of highly qualified math teachers available to work in our public school system and other schools.
What should replace the income tax? My suggestion would be a national sales tax of some sort. Perhaps a VAT or Value Added Tax (Which is how most European nations pay for government these days) or the Fair Tax being promoted by Congressman John Linder (R-Georgia) and many Republicans. No I don’t necessarily support Fair Tax, I just think Fair Tax as outlined by Neal Boorst & Linder in “The Fair Tax Book*” would be far better than our current tax system.
A national sales tax would encourage responsible behavior saving and investing by individuals and discourage reckless behavior (conspicuous consumption). Such a sales tax would benefit the working and middle classes by allowing them to take home every cent of their pay checks.
This sales tax would also help Americans save money because it would be simple to collect. No massive IRS bureaucracy or enforcement mechanisms, no audits, no accountants, or tax returns. Instead the tax would be accessed by cash registers or computer programs during the sales process. The average high school grad could use a computer program like Quicken to figure out even the largest corporation’s tax obligation in a few minutes under such a system. Individuals would no longer have the burden of determining their tax obligation or the headache of trying to figure what their deductions and refund will be.
Perhaps, most importantly, a sensible tax system would get mathematically minded Americans out from behind the piles of tax forms and into the classroom where they can do some real good for our kids.
* “The Fair Tax Book” Copyright 2005 by Neal Boortz and John Linder, Harper Collins Publishers, New York, NY.