Posted by
Scottie on Tuesday, July 31, 2007 9:31:42 PM
"From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." – Karl Marx
"In the most advanced countries the following will be pretty generally applicable:..a heavy progressive or graduated income tax." – The Communist Manefisto
It’s time to rethink the income tax system in this country. It really boils down to fundamental fairness. Currently, nearly half of the people in this country pay virtually no income tax at all while the bulk of the burden falls increasingly on fewer and fewer wealthy taxpayers. This is a receipe for disaster. Eventually, if the current system continues, the wealthy will move their money offshore and the system will collapse. Simply mandating that everyone shall eat steak doesn’t produce any steak.
Why should the people receiving the benefits our society provides be excused from paying anything for it? When a majority of voters have no stake in the cost of government, can more and bigger government be far behind? Isn’t this the essence of Universal Health Care? A class of people that pays little or no taxes wants the rest of society to pick up the tab for them, even if it ultimately destroys the system for everyone, including themselves. How long before this majority demands transportation, food, shelter, utilities, and every other conceivable human need from an ever shrinking minority paying for it?
How much care and consideration will be given to the fruits of this largess? Don’t people naturally devalue things that are free and protect the things that come dear? If the majority can demand whatever it likes, and the politicians will certainly respond to that demand, what is to prevent them demanding everything essential to life as if it were an entitlement due them? And once they have enshrined their “right” to it, will those receiving these benefits have any appreciation for the value of what they receive? Not likely.
If you mull this over, you may well come to the conclusion I’ve come to. The income tax system as it is currently configured is really just Marxism by other means. It takes from the most productive in order to give to the less productive. It takes from those that have the resources (from their ability), and gives the spoils of this taking to those less fortunate (to their needs). You can bet the recipients of this largess will fight tooth and nail to maintain the status quo. But it’s a fight worth contemplating. In my opinion, this is a more existential threat to our nation than radical Islam.
It’s time to give a solid look at the Fair Tax plan. It has much to recommend it, but the principal reason I support it is that it creates a sharing of the burden by all but the truly poor in a straightforward manner. That it also returns to the people the power to control the amount of money available to the government is just icing on the cake. Can you imagine a democracy based on the cummulative votes tallied at the nation’s cash registers replacing the current system of Marxism by other means? Poetic justice in its truest form. Wreck the economy, no money for you!
Scottie