Everyday, the New York Post newspaper publishes a "Weird But True" column. In today's issue, there is a blurb about a police officer in Boston who was suspended for going on a ticket writing spree near the statehouse while the lawmakers were cutting police salaries.
I wonder if the tickets were legitimate or fraudulent. If they were legit, than what difference does it make what the officer's motivation was in writing them? A violation is a violation, right? I suspect that if the officer had written all his tickets in some blue-collar neighborhood instead of at the statehouse, than these Pols would have been gleeful about the amount of revenue he was generating for the City, not punishing him for it.
It brings to mind the hypocrisy of all the tax cheats that reside within our federal government, either as elected officials or appointed bureaucrats. It often seems that the very people that are screaming the loudest about paying higher taxes being a patriotic duty are the same lowlife crooks who get caught scamming the system (you know, the Charlie Rangels, Tom Daschles, and Timothy Geithners of the world, and their ilk). When caught, the excuse always seems to be "Oh, I (or better yet, my accountant) made a mistake. I didn't realize I had to report this as income," or some variation of this story.
Suppose you are feeling charitable and actually want to grant these people the benefit of the doubt (personally, I am not so inclined because I believe that if it were you or I caught for cheating on taxes and our excuse was "I didn't know", there wouldn't be much sympathy headed our way from the good ol' IRS). Aren't they, the very proponents of the status quo, in their actions as tax cheats making the best argument possible for reforming our assinine tax code? I mean, if our tax code really is so complex that the fools writing and administering the legislation governing it cannot be expected to comply with it, than isn't it time we scrap it and start over with something new?
Several friends of mine have become fans of the national consumption or "sales tax" that Mike Huckabee brought to some mainstream prominence during the Republican Presidential Primaries in 2008. I see several problems with a consumption tax, however, not the least of which is the idea that by taxing everything we buy on a national basis at the level necessary to replace the income tax (I've seen estimates from 20-30%), we will effectively discourage people from making purchases, which in turn will hurt the economy and at the same time deprive the federal government of tax revenue. My fear is that this loss of revenue will force Washington to either cut spending or find new ways to tax us. And we all know how likely it is that the politicians in D.C. will cut spending... let's just say, don't bank on it.
No, I am more a fan of a flat tax, similar to what Hong Kong & many of the former Soviet Republics have adopted (including Russia). I feel it is the way to go. With a lower, flat rate, and no double taxation, the people keep more of their hard-earned money, & government revenues increase because tax paying compliance improves (fewer cheats). Plus, the code is simple... needing no more than 2 post-card sized pieces of paper to define. That makes a lot more sense to me than our current 16,845 page (and ever-growing) disaster of a tax code.
I don't know if people realize that until 1913 and the passage of the 16th ammendment to the US Constitution, we did not have a permanent income tax in the USA. So prior to 1913, government found ways to fund itself without taxing the citizens. Now I realize that prior to 1913, we didn't have boatloads of New Deal and Great Society social programs to pay for, nor did we have a national interstate system to support, or countless other Federal endeavors and programs... I am not so naive as to believe that we can do away with taxes altogether. I just feel that if they were simplified and implemented more fairly, it would go a long way to improving the quality of life for us all.
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