2008 Presidential Candidate Talking Point Comparison

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2008 Presidential Candidate Talking Point Comparison

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Obama Details Raising Taxes On Gains, Dividends And Threatens The U.S. Economy

B. Hussein Obama has let loose a little more of his economic plans for America, and they are not good. Deborah Solomon over at the Wall Street Journal takes a good look into this story:

Sen. Obama outlined a plan Thursday to raise tax rates on capital gains and dividend income from 15% to 20% for individuals and families making more than $200,000 and $250,000, respectively. He also detailed a plan to levy payroll taxes on earnings above $250,000 at a rate between 2% and 4%, though that increase wouldn't occur for at least a decade. Right now, payroll taxes, used to fund retirement benefits, are levied on income up to $102,000. Jason Furman, Sen. Obama's economic-policy director, said the plan would cut taxes to less than 18.2% of gross domestic product. "That's lower than the level of taxes when Ronald Reagan was president," he said.

But it is still a tax increase. And as the U.S. learned in 1932 and 1936, raising anyone's taxes during an economic downturn is the absolute worst thing that government could do. Back in the 1930's it caused the Great Depression to last years longer than it should have. Today, B. Hussein Obama's economic policy could very well trigger a second Great Depression.

More:

"The U.S. economy is in a weak state. We've got a credit crunch, high oil prices...this is not the time to be raising anybody's taxes," said John Taylor, a Stanford University economist who is advising Sen. Obama's rival, Republican Sen. John McCain. "When the investment tax rate is higher it affects behavior because we see a retrenchment of companies paying dividends," said Bruce Josten, executive vice president of government affairs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Dividends and capital gains lure investors to participate in the stock market, and their investment provides capital for companies to use to expand their business. A reduction in that capital could hurt business and the U.S. economy, Mr. Josten said. He said the business community also is concerned that Sen. Obama's broader tax plan would remove more individuals from the income-tax rolls, a situation that could lead to future tax increases on wealthier Americans.

But it goes deeper:

The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, a trade group, criticized the proposed investment-income tax increases as dangerous. "The next occupant of the Oval Office is going to face some tough choices on fiscal policy, but raising taxes on capital gains and dividends will only further endanger an already-weakening economy and punish the more than half of all American households that are invested in the stock market," said Travis Larson, a spokesman for the group.

Less investment = less capital. Less capital = fewer jobs. Fewer jobs = lower tax revenues. Lower tax revenues = Dems calling for higher taxes on those who do have incomes. Then we are right back to less investment.

It's a pity the Dems are completely unable to understand this Socialistic economic cycle.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

Obama Details Raising Taxes On Gains, Dividends
Deborah Solomon
The Wall Street Journal
August 15, 2008

The Numbers Don't Lie. We Need To Get Rid Of The IRS!

As tax time approaches, let's look at some of the data that has been compiled about the most intrusive, abusive and outright wasteful agency in the U.S. Government: the Internal Revenue Service.

This opening paragraph from the National Retail Sales Tax Alliance webpage of Tax Facts summarizes it very nicely:

The IRS is not only the most feared of government agencies, it also is one of the biggest and most expensive. The agency has more employees than the Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Drug Enforcement Agency combined, and its budget makes it a bigger consumer of tax dollars than the Departments of Commerce, State, or the Interior.

But, let's look at some of the numbers, shall we?

New Evidence 12,000 = The number of additional IRS employees needed to answer phone inquiries from confused taxpayers during tax filing season. Because taxpayers will have nothing to file under a national retail sales tax, additional personnel will not be needed. $1,000 = The hourly collection quota placed on IRS agents auditing individual taxpayers in the San Francisco office. Although collection quotas violate the law, the current system is so complex that the IRS assumes mistakes will be found on every return. There will be no errors with a national retail sales tax because there will be no returns to examine. 62,000,000 = The number of lines of computer code required by the IRS to manage the current tax code. A national retail sales tax will ease the IRS's ongoing computer problems dramatically. 1,420 = The number of appraisals of works of art that an IRS panel performed in order to tax the assets of dead people. Because double taxation under a national retail sales tax does not exist, the absurdity of having the IRS value art would disappear with the death (estate) tax. 3,200 = The number of threats and assaults IRS agents experienced over a five-year period. A fair and simple tax system will reduce taxpayers' frustrations dramatically. What We Already Knew 136,000 = The number of employees at the IRS and elsewhere in the government who are responsible for administering the tax laws. Because the number needed is dictated by the complexity of the tax code, fewer personnel will be needed under a national retail sales tax, and the elimination of the IRS will save taxpayers a significant amount of money. $13,700,000,000 = The amount of tax money spent by the IRS and other government agencies to enforce and oversee the tax code. Both taxpayers and the economy will benefit from the spending reductions made possible by a national retail sales tax. 17,000 = The number of pages of IRS laws and regulations, not including tax court decisions and IRS letter rulings. This page count would be reduced significantly by a national retail sales tax. 5,557,000 = The number of words in the income tax laws and regulations. With a national retail sales tax, there will be no need for a tax code that is nearly seven times longer than the Bible.

The NRSTA website has many more data references like the ones above. But what can we do about it? The answer is simple: Abolish the IRS. If we could replace the Income Tax system with a National Sales Tax System, here are the numbers we can look forward to:

0 = The number of taxpayers under a national retail sales tax who will have to calculate depreciation schedules. 0 = The number of taxpayers under a national retail sales tax who will have to keep track of itemized deductions. 0 = The number of taxpayers under a national retail sales tax who will need to reveal their assets to the government. 0 = The number of taxpayers under a national retail sales tax who will lose their farms or businesses because of the death (estate) tax. 0 = The number of taxpayers under a national retail sales tax who will have to pay a double tax on their capital gains. 0 = The number of taxpayers under a national retail sales tax who will have to compute a phase-out of their personal exemption because their incomes are too high. 0 = The number of taxpayers under a national retail sales tax who will be subject to the alternative minimum tax--those forced to calculate their tax bill two different ways and then to pay the government the greater of the two amounts. 0 = The number of taxpayers under a national retail sales tax who will have to pay taxes on overseas income that already was taxed by the government of the country in which the income was earned. 0 = The number of taxpayers under a national retail sales tax who will have to pay taxes on dividend income that already was taxed at the business level. 0 = The number of taxpayers under a national retail sales tax who will be taxed on interest income that already was taxed at the financial institution level.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

Interesting Tax Facts
NTRSA
Virginia Chapter










Petition For The FairTax

Star Parker Supports The FairTax!

Yes! As time goes on we see more and more people coming over to support the FairTax as a viable replacement for our convoluted, often contradictory and wasteful current Tax Code. From Star Parker's latest column:

Economists can argue cause and effect. I'll just point out that as soon as we enacted the income tax, growth of the federal government took off and outstripped state and local spending as the major tax burden on citizens. The income tax, with its 45,000 pages of tax code, is now simply a sandbox for politicians and lobbyists to play in. This is what we should focus on in all the discussion about special interests, lobbyist influence and runaway growth in government. With a national retail sales tax to finance government, the tax burden on citizens would be totally transparent. Whenever you make a purchase and look at the sales slip, you'd see the 23 percent tax and know that's what you are paying for the federal government and its programs. When a Sen. Smith or a Congressman Jones shepherds some new program through Congress and the president signs it into law -- ka-ching! -- we'd immediately see it at the cash register. When you ask the cashier why you are now paying 24 percent instead of 23 percent, he or she can explain that you are paying for some wonderful new government program.

Just imagine how people will get motivated to stand up to politicians in D.C. if they could see first hand how playing political games affects the American consumer.

Star goes on:

Most of those 45,000 pages of the tax code reflect special treatments and deductions for businesses, particular types of investment, or behavior. This stuff got in there and regularly gets modified and changed as a result of various special interests working their magic. The number of registered lobbyists in Washington doubled over the last eight years from 17,000 to over 34,000. A good chunk of their business is generated by proposed additions or changes to the tax code. If you listen to Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, with all the talk of reducing lobbyists' influence, most of their pitch is using the tax code for their social engineering programs. I say get rid of the code, the Internal Revenue Service and the lobbyists.

Absolutely! As I have written several time before, the FairTax is the only Tax Reform Plan that that addresses three end-goals:

1) The plan must remove from the IRS any power to intrude on the private lives of American citizens.
2) The plan must remove from the K Street lobbyists any power to influence Congressional votes.
3) The plan must not allow hidden taxes to be passed along to the consumer at any time.

And this:

Ironically, the major reason why the national retail sales tax gets so little attention is because insiders deem it politically impossible to achieve. Those who are part of the problem don't want the solution. The tax code is now one huge special-interest honey pot and the swarming bees want to keep it that way.

Yep. Which is why we need to keep growing our grass-roots movement until it become a juggernaut that no politician, Dem or GOP, can ignore.

You can access the complete column on-line here:

A 'Yes, We Can' Plan With Beef
Star Parker
TownHall.com
February 25, 2008







Petition For The FairTax