patrick.net

We have a huge problem with 1. Giant welfare state 2. Giant government employee state 3. Giant military state

Once upon a time, they only taxed spirit alcohol, tobacco and imported goods.

You kept your money. Imagine that?

I don’t have a solution which doesn’t involve cutting welfare, military and government employment.

Too many people like the freebies and it’s gotten worse with the absurd PPP money and free checks recently.

Guys like me who believe in “sink or swim” are considered greedy racist assholes by losers and goodbricks.

The halmark of a just society is in many ways how they treat the least among them... but in my mind there is a differnce between a hand up and a handout.

That said I'd be ok with scaling back, or even phasing out some of the various welfare programs (ObamaPhone comes to mind) and reducing the size of government at all levels.

I don't see how we can pare down the millitary and maintain security. That said we shouldn't be sending money we don't have to have others fight proxy wars on our behalf. Eaiser said than done.

I would argue to tax multifamily or real estate more, however, I'm a fan of budget cuts in the government....there is a lot of waste.

GreaterNYCDude says

In a modern captalist economy, it makes more sense to me to tax consumption rather than income.

Yes, but good economics makes bad politics. Taxing income gives power to lawmakers through favored exemptions.

HeadSet says

Taxing income gives power to lawmakers through favored exemptions.

And that, in my view, it the root cause of many of our issues in this country. Political inaction in deference to deep pocketed special interests that want to keep the status quo.

GreaterNYCDude says

Until the 16th ammendment was passed in the early 1900's, we got by without fedetal income taxes.

You mean we got buy without a central bank.

GreaterNYCDude says

we were not yet the superpower we became, huge millitary and all,

Yet we defeated the largest empire in the world when we founded our country, and now, we can't compete with any major military power.

GreaterNYCDude says

have a federal tax on goods and services rendered.

It's called sales tax.

GreaterNYCDude says

tax it at a nominal rate to raise sufficent revenue to keep the government running.

The exorbitant taxes collected now can't even keep the government running. That's why we have a central bank that's been printing like crazy since 1913.

If you don't understand the purpose of a central bank, you'll get lost in the weeds of Keynesian bullshit and economic jargon purposely designed to keep you from understanding the purpose of a central bank. You want a real solution, Griffin outlined an extensive one. But more importantly this conversation cannot be useful without understanding that the biggest tax on us, BY FAR, is inflation. Everything else is peanuts in comparison.

It’s not the central bank making money.
It’s congress allowing the US Treasury to sell trillions of dollars of IOUs called bonds.

They are sold in auctions from time to time.

Lately the Federal Reserve has been buying a lot of them but they are planning on selling them off.

The huge problem for Americans is much of the debt (bonds) is owned by foreigners, so your tax dollars, your children’s tax dollars will be paid to foreigners as interest on the gigantic debt.

It’s depressing to think about it, and also to realize nobody gives a shit about it.

I've said for decades that no one would care about government corruption or regulation if government spending was less than 1% of GDP. It's a rule that the founding fathers should have codified in the constitution.

I also agree with the sentiment that the bill of rights were a mistake. They provide wiggle room for authoritarian lawyers to 'interpret' a very straight forward document - "if it ain't in here, then it's up to the states".

Bring back the articles of confederation.

Greater NYC. Dude asks why we don’t just tax goods and services and then pass a balance the budget amendment . To begin with goods and services is a consumption tax ( nearly impossible for the feds to est taxes) many states already have a consumption tax but have a lower sales tax ( a few states don’t even have a sales tax) . A Fed consumption tax wouldn’t even bring in enough revenue vs income tax and it could lead to higher unemployment by h/o even business owners doing the work themselves ,to prevent paying what would be an astronomical tax . Items we don’t tax is food /health services and devices ,Alimony,child support /food stamps / gvt welfare ,charities , so a personal consumption tax is subject to abuse as well as not capable of raising enough money . You mentioned there was no personal income tax before 1916 ,that is also incorrect the revenue act of 1861 and revised in 1862 to finance the Civil War “The Revenue Act’s language was broadly written to define income as gain “derived from any kind of property, or from any professional trade, employment, or vocation carried on in the United States or elsewhere or from any source whatever “ history .com income below 600 tax not taxable and there was an tax for higher incomes .Lincoln also was the first prez do end payments redeemable in silver or gold when the “ greenbacks” became legal currency .The revenue act lasted till 1872 when Gen Grant took office and was declared unconstitutional by Supreme Court in 1895 .Congress tried to reenact them but failed until 1909 when the 16th amendment was passed .The civil war for those that may not be aware of was about Taxes ,slavery wasn’t the main issue at the time but it would eviolve to it later .

Think the Afghan war is over ? Not in terms of money anyhow .The Civil War costs continued for 148 + years “ AP identified the disability and I’m not sure how that would go over in this forum survivor benefits during an analysis of millions of federal payment records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act “ Ap also found that since 1970 270 Billion has been spent on benefits to vets ,families and children iin eligible https://www.businessinsider.com/the-costs-of-us-wars-have-lingered-for-more-than-100-years-2013-3 .This does not count our most expensive wars Iraqi and Afghan which will linger on to the new century .Someone brought up taxing multi-family priperties and I assume rental properties at a higher rate , juuging by the lack of comments one would think it went over like a lead stone .Personally I liked but not sold on Henry Gerorge’s idea of taxing land values by the state instead of ( todays use) giving tax benefits for developing undeveloped land which leads to sprawling land development and inner city decay .Redeveloping the old decaying / empty buildings in a lot cases would fix our infrastructure,and our empty lands would be much better suited environment ,farm land ,,etc .Tax breaks for redevelopment would fix our inner cities and perhaps lower crime rates as the income to the city /state would have benefits.Inflasturture would be fixed as a result bringing building codes up to date and a better quality of life for the community at large . .Suburban sprawl is not using /managing our limited resources .What I don’t like is Ca using hidden taxes ie lumber tax ,paint can tax carpet/pad tax even the paper/plastic tax that no one seems to know where it goes .New and creative ways of taxing us is one reason proving the lawmakers only waste our $ instead doing what the state needs grid / damns / Central Valley revitalization / road repairs the whole enchilada…..but what am I thinking of they can tax us more for the items later .

clambo says

It’s not the central bank making money.
It’s congress allowing the US Treasury to sell trillions of dollars of IOUs called bonds.

Could Congress do this without a central bank? They could try, but the amount of taxes they would need to raise would be so high, they'd be signing their own death warrants. You see how good bankers are at shifting blame to anyone but them...

clambo says

It’s not the central bank making money.
It’s congress allowing the US Treasury to sell trillions of dollars of IOUs called bonds.

First: what NuttBoxer said is totally correct

Yes, this is only possible with the CENTRAL BANK.

That's the root problem.

Look, if you give me the ability to print "the currency" and give me a monopoly on it, and you never audit me, how long before you think it will be before I own most of the country?

The central bank, the federal reserve, doesn't have to work in ANY sense. They don't have to do labor and they don't have to even function properly. What a fucking "job" that is.

Getting people to understand HOW the corruption works is a very hard problem. You have a bunch of assholes running a system where there is no oversight that depends entirely on trust. They can print up 100 billion dollars and purchase google stock, twitter stock, they can fund CNN, they can fund wars - you have no idea how they do this, it's all private information. The Federal Reserve is our TRUE leadership. They have infinite power because they have infinite money.

clambo says

Lately the Federal Reserve has been buying a lot of them but they are planning on selling them off.

The Federal Reserve gives credit to the government, then makes money to purchase the bonds they created. Don't you see the insanity and corruption of this?