Thanks for bringing this story out. I wish that somebody could force The Precedent, or one of his comrades, to go into much more detail on what he meant – which would inevitably lead to a long (perhaps, record-breaking) sequence of “uh”s, “um”s, and “er”s. This instance serves as a perfect example of how the left tries to steal legitimate arguments and, after some mind-boggling twisting and perversion of contexts, abuse them to serve leftist purposes.

That would eliminate all deductions, and everyone would pay the same percentage of income to the government, and it would also have the salutary effect of eliminating 90% of the IRS’ work.

Exhibit A on why it will never happen.

Now, for the top 5 percent, they’re the ones who typically saw huge gains in their income. I — I fall in that category. And what we’ve said is, for those folks, let’s not renew the Bush tax cuts

Barry Obama admits that Bush’s tax cuts made him wealthier?! WTF?! Curses to you, George W. Bush…curses!

most of the IRS’s tax code answers the question of “what is income?” whether you are paying 90% rate or 10% rate, the definition of income remains.

unseen on March 25, 2009 at 11:51 AM

Not bad… but my idea?

Use the money to LOAN, at 0%, to any real business with a reasonable business plan…

And NOT to banks!

Right now the Fed lends to banks at essentialy 0% interest, who then make money off it…. but are not lending to people trying to get capital to make money.

Have the Federal Government quit being an enabler of Rich Bankers, and be the enabler of the Capitalist who wants to BUILD somthing…

Of course, we’d have to get the environmentalists out of the way…

In effect raising taxes on charitable giving.

S**t, next he’ll cut taxes on cigarettes.

ponit taken. My thrust was that there are many many other ways that the gov “could” stimulate the economy that might actually work instead of what they have been doing. Personally I am not for any stimulus. I think recessions are a needed part of a capitalistic system that gets rid of the deadwood and the stupid people that can not handle capital.

unseen on March 25, 2009 at 12:50 PM

Why not just increase the tax on fuel a bit and hike the fees as well? My point was more sarcasm than any real solid commentary.

So, I get what you’re saying, but my real point was that it would just be another opportunity to raise taxes because of the budget shortfall; or the budget problem could be used as a reason to avoid supporting the plan.

We’ll just have to raise taxes all around for the common good.

thequeball on March 25, 2009 at 12:35 PM

state could increase the registration fees to make up some of the shortfall. or the federal gov could take some of that $2 trillion and make up the difference in black grants to the states. The gasoline tax only brings in several billion it is not like it is a major tax for the state. most states use it to fund their road programs so they can use the other tax money for social programs the states would be able to readjust some expenditures.

This is all dictated on the thought that the gov wants to help instead that they want more power.

The US Government will never get rid of the IRS or the current tax code. Too much Power would be lost

unseen on March 25, 2009 at 11:51 AM

Yeah that would be nice, but then you shatter all those DOT budgets that rely on gasoline taxes.

We’ll just have to raise taxes all around for the common good.

Which would also be the case for a flat tax, but without the black market problem.

How so? It would still be the deadline for everyone to file forms with the IRS declaring their income.

There is no more reason to think there will be a black market problem with sales taxes than with income taxes. In fact, because the agencies charged with collecting those taxes need not concern themselves with people who sell nothing but their services, far less resources can be used to ensure compliance than under our current, far more intrusive, scheme.

If done right trade wars make your enemies poor like we did to the soviet union. we had a trade war with USSR and CUBA for alomst 50 years and it destroyed them.

i would much rather have an economic war betwqeen enemies then a nuclear exchange.

As far as funding a gov. You have 33% going to interest on the debt, 33% to social welfare programs like medicare and social security and 33% to the armed forces. with about 1-2% going to everything else. That means that you could get along and be a superpower on 66% less than what the gov is spending now. Which could be well funded by tarrifs. while trade with you friends is a plus trade with your eneimes is a net neg. We are killing ourselves by trading with China. Increased trade also uses more resources which pushes the cost of those resources. Tarriffs are not an evil they are simply a tool. How you use that tools determines its usefulness. Our free trade policy has been a failure on every level. It has taken us from the biggest lender nation to the biggest debtor nation, it has weakened demand at home by outsourcing jobs. It has made corpations extremly wealthy which they have used to buy uor government. It has entangled us in world wide treaties that have caused us to lose much of our national idenity and our ability to control our borders.

But you know it has reduced prices so it must be good /scar

First rule of holes comes into play…

Romeo13 on March 25, 2009 at 11:39 AM

A real stimulus would have been if the gov took that $2 Trillion dollars and paid GM, F, and Chrysler to produce a stripped down hybrid for everyone old enough to drive. It would have put the upper midwest back to work, it would save the avg family a car payment, reduce our dependency on forgien energy, decreased family fuel budgets, decrease or trade defiect, produce markets for upgrades of the basic car model. It would stimulate the insurance industry, filled state coffers with the registration fees and inscpection fees.

By reducing the family car budget you are in effect giving every americian a pay raise thereby stimulating more consupmtion of other goods.

One car one time and then the gov gets out of the idustry. Every person that has a social security # and is old enough gets a car. This would also make rounding up illegal immigrates easier since they would not be able to get a car and would have to drive other vechiles and the police could be on the look out for those.

It would have some unintedned consequesse like the auto repair business would go thru a tough time, used car dealers would be hit hard too but after the first year or so those industries would be ok as people upgrade or fix their cars (since they are made by the gov you know they will break)

while not a great fix it is a hell of alot better then throwing trillions at the elites (I mean banks) so they can maintian their lifestyles.

but with the liberal policy of FDIC the gov really had no choice they would have had to pay trillions either way