Church and State need further separation - tax the churches.

Michelle Bachman - Intellectual of the GOP

Michelle Bachman is a Congresswoman from Minnesota and it is great that she's in Congress - she's almost always worth a hoot and a holler. Blow is a clip in which she claims that America may go broke because we're running out of rich people to tax.

Obama Considers Tax on Cabinet

From Andy Borowitz Reports 2/3/09 (click the link to read more)...

President Barack Obama is mulling a controversial new tax program that would require members of his Cabinet to pay taxes owed under the Federal tax code, the White House confirmed today.

While the unorthodox tax proposal is reportedly "only in the planning stages," it is being eyed as a possible way to balance the Federal budget.

Did You Know - Fair Tax

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's unexpectedly strong second-place showing in the recent Iowa Republican straw poll is widely attributed to his support for the FairTax.

For those who never heard about it, the FairTax is a national retail sales tax that would replace the entire current federal tax system. It was originally devised by the Church of Scientology in the early 1990s as a way to get rid of the Internal Revenue Service, with which the church was then at war (at the time the IRS refused to recognize it as a legitimate religion). The Scientologists' idea was that since almost all states have sales taxes, replacing federal taxes with the same sort of tax would allow them to collect the federal government's revenue and thereby get rid of their hated enemy, the IRS.

Rep. John Linder (R., Ga.) and Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R., Ga.) have introduced legislation (H.R. 25/S. 1025) to implement the FairTax. They assert that a rate of 23% would be sufficient to replace federal individual and corporate income taxes as well as payroll and estate taxes. Mr. Linder's Web site claims that U.S. gross domestic product will rise 10.5% the first year after enactment, exports will grow by 26%, and real investment spending will increase an astonishing 76%.

In reality, the FairTax rate is not 23%. Messrs. Linder and Chambliss get this figure by calculating the tax as if it were already incorporated into the price of goods and services. (This is known as the tax-inclusive rate.) Calculating it the conventional way that every other (This is called the tax-exclusive rate.)

[NB - the above paragraph is cut off in the original article. That last sentence should be corrected as follows...

Calculating it the conventional way that every other percent is calculated (P=RxB for those who remember their middle school math), it would be a 30% tax rate. In other words, anything that curently costs $1 would cost $1.30 under the new Fair Tax. (This is called the tax-exclusive rate.)]

From OpinionJournal.

The Fair Tax is not a new concept in the American political scene. A couple of election cycles ago, Steve Forbes ran for President with the Fair Tax standing as the basis for his platform. Something very interesting to consider if it intrigues you - this is being proposed by rich people because it will mean all investments will be tax free. Those who can afford to buy stocks and bonds will see dividends and interest payments all accrue tax free. Although I've not read any definitive definition of the "Fair Tax," I'd guess that it will only be levied on retail sales making all transactions between corporations, for purchase of raw materials, tax free.

Because the poor spend nearly 100% of their income on retail purchases (food, clothing, shelter, etc.) and the rich spend a much smaller percentage of their income in this manner (they are far more likely to invest in the aforementioned stocks and bonds), the tax will fall incredibly hard on poor people.

Assuming no change in retail prices, were a fair tax to be levied, the imapct on someone making $20,000 a year (for a family of four, they would currently pay little if any income tax) would be to reduce their purchasing power by 30%, to roughly $14,000. It would be devastating.

As usual, the fat cats are proposing a system that would penalize poor perople for being poor while reward ing the rich for being so astute as to have gotten rich.

Speaking of Poverty

From the Daily Kos Blog...

As Jim Webb pointed out in his hard-hitting op-ed in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, it's pretty clear where the money is coming from: The top 1% now takes in an astounding 16% of national income, up from 8% in 1980. The tax codes protect them, just as they protect corporate America, through a vast system of loopholes. John Edwards, in his criticism of GOP policies that reward wealth over work, has been making the same point consistently: The middle and working classes of this country are carrying a disproportionate amount of the tax burden, showing up for work and picking up the tab for funding this country while the wealthy move money around in accounts, take tax breaks and call it a day.