Soon to be President Barack Obama has a plan that involves how much of your money the government will take away, by force if necessary. Some people won’t pay anything. Some people will pay a lot. The plan, like those that have come before it - the only constant being that tax rates have grown vastly since World War I - is based not on common sense or fairness, but on economic voodoo.

Senator Barack Obama declared recently that he wants to “reform our tax code so that it rewards work and not just wealth.” We think that is a great goal if it means a simple tax system with low marginal tax rates. Unfortunately, a close inspection of Obama’s proposals reveals something disquieting: he would raise marginal tax rates for many middle-income taxpayers, a bad move for anyone seeking to promote economic growth.

Although Obama is offering a new series of tax breaks, they undermine rather than improve economic incentives. First, whether or not you get those breaks will depend on your income. In Washington, taking away tax breaks as families work harder to make more money is called a “phase-out.” Economists have a different name for it—we call it a tax. Reducing a person’s tax credit as his income goes up also reduces his incentive to earn more income.

The keys to our current tax system are manifold. Although touted as voluntary, our tax system is based on force. If you don’t pay whatever the government determines you should pay then force comes into play. First you are threatened. Then your wages are garnished. If you continue to try and avoid paying whatever “fair share” the bureaucrats say you owe the rest of the country, you’ll end up in jail, with all your real property forfeit to the Fed. If you ask questions about the laws that entitle the government to seize however much of your money it wants, you’ll soon find yourself surrounded by armed goons.

Just ask Edward and Elaine Brown of New Hampshire. You’ll have to visit them in jail to do so. The couple is currently sentenced to 63 months in federal pound me in the ass prison for refusing to participate in the “voluntary” tax system because the government wouldn’t answer their tax questions honestly.

The law they were accused of violating was the personal income tax law and the Browns asked to see the law before they handed over any more money. Their quest for proof of the existence of such a law began over 10 years ago when they first found out the income tax was being misapplied to include taxing all Americans labor. Once the browns realized they, along with the rest of us, were being defrauded of our hard worked labor by the irs they decided to make a stand and challenge the government, not only for themselves, but for the rest of the people in this country, so that they also will be made aware of the terrible injustice being carried out on each of us every day.

You may agree or disagree with the Browns methodology. That’s your right. However, I would strongly encourage you to take a few moments to understand how the upcoming Obama presidency is likely to affect your pocketbook.

While Obama has publicly embraced a tax rate of 40 percent for couples earning over $350,000, his tax policies would result in a staggering 45 percent effective marginal rate in the $110,000 to $120,000 income range for this family. That is 11 percentage points higher than under current law.

Here’s a graph:

Bear in mind that if you ask to see the current tax law, no one will be able to show you anything that a) is Constitutional or b) vaguely resembles a coherent, interpretable English document. The current federal tax code is purposely obtuse and also completely against the highest law of the land, the United States Constitution. At least, that is my opinion.

One question I’ve always asked those who feel it is OK for the federal government to skim money off of every paycheck I’ve ever earned is: if God himself only requires 10% why is it OK for people I’ve never met to take more than that? No one has ever given me an answer that made any sense.

Fighting the tax man may be difficult and dangerous, but it is also a moral imperative. I have the audacity of hope on my side.

Want to know what Congress is planning to do with the money they want to steal from you in 2009?

Defense: $515 billion ($294)
Homeland Security: $38 billion ($0; was in Domestic Necessary)
Domestic Necessary: $713 billion
Domestic Worthy Causes*: $305 billion ($217)
Social Security: $644 billion ($409)
Medicare: $408 billion ($197)
Medicaid and SCHIP: $224 billion ($136)
Interest: $260 billion ($223)
Total: $3107 ($1789)

Numbers in parentheses are how much was spent in fiscal year 2000. Source article here.

Here is the projected income:

Personal income taxes: $1259 billion ($1004.5)
Corporate income taxes: $339 billion ($207.3)
Social Insurance receipts: $949 billion ($652.9)
Other taxes: $153 billion ($161)
Deficit: $400 billion (surplus $236 billion)

I disagree with the authors’ conclusions - let’s completely eliminate Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid as a start - it cannot be done in one year, but it can be done. That would balance out the budget by eliminating almost a trillion dollars in theft. Social Security is an illegal Ponzi scheme, whether anyone will admit it or not. People too stupid to live healthy lifestyles and put money aside for the time when their health inevitably starts to fail deserve to suffer the consequences (I include myself in this group; I am a former smoker).

Once we get the trillion dollars of “I’m too stupid to take care of myself” money out of the budget, we can tackle the $305 billion in “domestic worthy causes” - honest people call that money pork. The proposed budget is criminal!

When you read articles that discuss government, taxation and the economy, it is important to take note of the tone of those articles. For instance, read a New York Times article called Weighing a McCain Economist by someone I don’t know named David Leonhardt.

Last week, Senator McCain laid out his economic vision in a speech in Pittsburgh. He talked about wasteful spending, but the newest, most detailed part of the speech dealt with a package of tax cuts that would cost about $300 billion a year. They would come on top of $350 billion a year in Bush tax cuts that Mr. McCain wants to make permanent. To put these numbers in perspective, the Iraq war has been costing roughly $200 billion a year.

When Leonhardt says “package of tax cuts that would cost about $300 billion a year” he is really saying that all that money belongs not to the individuals it will be taken from in the form of taxes but rather to the collective of bureaucrats and agents will will redistribute it according to their own particular agendas. Government does not bear the cost of policy changes. The taxpayer does. This fact is purposefully ignored.

What the budget office found, as study after study has shown, was that any new revenue that tax cuts brought in paled in comparison with their cost. This is why the deficit jumped under the last two tax-cutting presidents (Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush) and fell under the last two tax-raising presidents (George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton).

In the above sentences Leonhardt makes a contentious assertion without providing a single shred of evidence. He expects his readers to simply assume that what he states is fact - everyone should inherently understand that new revenues brought by tax cuts pale in comparison with the cost of those tax cuts! Silly peasants.

At least on one point, the concluding sentence, Leonhardt and I tenatively agree:

Instead, when you add up the numbers that have been released so far, you’re left wondering if he (McCain) is the least fiscally conservative candidate still in the race.

While I wonder who the least fiscally conservative candidate might be, I know for certain that not one of the three is a true fiscal conservative. All of them want too much of my money. All of them want to take economic blood from my veins and use it for the promotion of policies with which I strongly disagree. The growth of the federal government must stop if the United States is to remain a healthy nation.

John McCain can’t or won’t reduce the size of the federal government no matter how much lip service he gives the idea of doing so - he’ll be similar to George W. when it comes to spending reductions - there won’t be any. Hillary Rodham Clinton is a communist and will remain one as long as she has the hope of being the head communist and setting standards for all of us that she isn’t subject too. Barack Obama is a socialist full of grand visions that, under analysis, are nothing more than empty promises and pipe dreams.

In the end all three of these individuals firmly believe that it is just fine to take my money and to use it however they see fit. That is a basic issue for every net producer in this nation, and should be a call to political action. Write in a candidate! I know I plan on doing so.

by John DeJong of NotMeUSA.com

The Fair Tax Plan (HR.25/S.25) has been out for well over a year now and yet there are still many people who have never even heard of it. One would think that a plan as bold and beneficial as this would be sounded from one coast to the next. Yet that is not the case. As a point of fact there are many liberal political leaders who continually ridicule the Fair Tax Plan whenever it is mentioned. Theyre acting under the misguided belief that this wonderful plan favors the rich. That is the farthest from the truth as one can come.

The sad fact is that if any of these doomsayers would take the time to actually read the entire plan then they would quickly recognize it for what it is the greatest social welfare program of all time. This belief Fair Tax proponents share is held because HR.25/S.25 will do more for the lower income wage earners in the U.S.A. than any other liberal program(s) in existence today.

You see, all consumers will receive an annualized rebate (in 12 equal monthly installments) on necessary living expenditures up to the poverty level. The size of the monthly rebate will be determined by the governments published poverty level for a particular household size, multiplied by the tax rate. What this means is that for each person the monthly rebate will be increased in order to pay for the entire household costs for the basic necessities of life. This monthly rebate is given to all citizens regardless of age, sex, race, or income level.

This is how the Fair Tax would have worked in the year 2000. An individual would have received 100% of their pay check. That is if they earned $250 per week they would have taken home $250 per week. Plus, the individual would also receive a monthly check of $160 each month to help pay for their basic necessities of life.

Thats a tax-free income and another $40 a week for your own benefit. The best part of all is what the Fair Tax Plan will do for families. Back in the year 2000 a family of four would have received an additional $431 rebate per month for their livelihood. That payment will happen each and every month until the children become adults. When one considers all of the added values with the Fair Tax in buying used items like cars and homes tax free; there is no better way of helping others to live the American dream.

Is that not what we all want in these United States? Is it not the entire Democratic doctrine to bring equality among the masses? So then why do your democratic leaders refuse to back HR-25/S-25 and all that it will do for America? These are the questions that you must demand of all of your representatives to answer  Democrats and Republicans alike.

The above are just a few of many more questions to be asked and I will address them all in following articles. Until then you can download and read the entire 40 page Fair Tax Plan brochure at the Fair Tax Volunteer website. While youre there you will also find tons of stuff and highly important political information on how we can all persuade our representatives into enacting the FairTax Plan. Of course you can also join the revolution while you are there.

The FairTax Blogburst is jointly produced by Terry of The Right Track Blog and Jonathan of Publius Rendezvous. If you would like to host the weekly postings on your blog, please e-mail Terry. You will be added to our mailing list and blogroll.

by TD of The Right Track

A quick and dirty search through Google News for articles, news, and editorials revealed no less than 14 pieces written in the last month regarding the FairTax. Fully 1/3 of those were editorials agreeing with the need for the FairTax.

A sampling:

From the Denver Daily News, an editorial titled “FairTax, not flat tax, needed to fix nation’s taxation woes“:

Dear editor,

The IRS needs to be eliminated and replaced with the FairTax, not the flat tax, as suggested by columnist Aaron Harber in Monday’sDenver Daily News.

The flat tax changes absolutely nothing the IRS, tax code, regulations, 16th Amendment, corporate taxation and payroll taxes (the way Social Security is funded) stay exactly the same under the flat tax.

At best, the flat tax is temporary, the wrong direction to move towards simplification.

From the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, “The Fairer Tax“:

The Fair Tax (FairTax.org) will make our true tax burden — most of which is concealed in the price of goods and services — visible to all and is a necessary first step toward smaller and less-intrusive government.

We cannot allow the perfect to become the enemy of the good.

So first, let’s replace the current complex and dishonest system of taxation with a fair and transparent system that will allow the people to choose how much government they can afford in full knowledge of how much it really costs.

The Raleigh/Durham News & Observer has an editorial headlined “Total Replacement“:

Our tax code has grown steadily more complex, unwieldy, expensive and out of control ever since its overhaul in 1986. The IRS is increasingly unable to cope with the tax code, and puts much of its resources to uses unrelated to raising revenue and contrary to the wishes of the Founders.

Like Icarus flying ever closer to the sun, the tax system appears to be headed for self-destruction. It is far beyond any fix and is losing respect and credibility. The only reasonable solution is to finally and completely scrap it and replace it. I support the revenue-neutral FairTax plan. (http://www.fairtax.org/ 1-800-FairTax).

This is just a sampling of what people are saying all across the country. Truly a grassroots effort, it takes people willing to step up and show public support for the FairTax to convince politicians that it’s in their best interest to support the bills.

One way to show public support is to write an editorial to your local paper, no matter how large or small. Use the FairTax category that may appear on this participant blog, visit http://www.fairtax.org/, or read the FairTax book by Boortz and Linder to learn more. Get your facts straight, then write your editorial and submit it. Many papers now have a way to submit online or via e-mail.

However you decide to do it, your public support for the FairTax is vital.

The FairTax Blogburst is jointly produced by Terry of The Right Track Blog and Jonathan of Publius Rendezvous. If you would like to host the weekly postings on your blog, please e-mail Terry. You will be added to our mailing list and blogroll.