Why Fair Tax Is Not Fair

It is simple.  Let us take the United States of America.

Our current tax on income nets us about $1.4 trillion.   If divided equally upon every American (315 m) we would all owe  $4444.44 dollars.  Pretty nifty right?

But that includes children. So, if we tax every working person fairly,  that is about 131 million of us,  each of us to be fair and pay the same amount would chip in $10, 687.

It shouldn’t matter how much one makes.  Everyone in a “fair” system should bear the brunt equally, right?

But some people simply don’t make $10,000 dollars.  Should all their totals then go to the Federal Government until they at least reach that  thresh hold?  And what about state and local taxes which are on top of these? They won’t get paid?

Of course not.

So we write off those who don’t make enough.  They are off the roles.

But shouldn’t they pay something?  Fairness says they should. But what? And if they don’t pay, who then should pick up their costs?  To be fair, shouldn’t it be split among everyone else?

Let’s answer that yes and see where it takes us.

Let us write off those making less than $10,000.  They can work without getting taxed and the rest us us pick up their slack.

The number of those making less then $10,000 are  roughly 38 million of us.  So if we take the entire tax burden and spread it equally, … we get the rest of us workers (131-38 ) 94 million of us share the $1.4 trillion dollar burden to the tune of $14,893 assessed upon each one….

We have two problems with this fairness model.  The first is that now, those making $15,000 a year, are working strictly for the Federal Government.  They have $0 dollars to spend.  The second fairness issue, is that those making only up to $10,000 in earnings keep all their money, but those between $10,000 and $15,000 now have nothing!  And of course those making $20,000 are scrapping to live off the $5,000 they have left, which is half of what those making only $10,000 have to spend.

Something is wrong with this “fair tax”.  It doesn’t  seem very fair now, does it?

Ok, so let’s jump it to $30,000.  A single person can live on $27,000 so let us make that the cut off point.  After all, they can get a cheap apartment at $1250 a month, pay off the utilities at $500 a month,  eat on $500 a month, and at $30,000  they can have $3000 for “others”….

So if the cut off is $30,000 then that wipes off the taxpaying roles  of 82,340,000 of us…  So those that are now left,  (131 – 82) .. 49,000,000 must bear the shared amount of  the rest.  Our shared total is ($1.4 trillion divided by 49 million)  or $28,571, well below the $30,000 threshold…

Well, now we are on to something!

If we divided the assessment up  according to the fair tax principals  every American making over $30,000 would pay $28,571… each.

We are told “this is fair” by the Flat Taxers, of which Huckabee is one.   From the rich man’s perspective it seems fair that the 81 of us making over $50,000,000 a year pay the same as everyone else making $30,000 a year or more.

for them it is like a community assessment fee.  Everyone who buys into America pays the same total into the same fund.

But,  from the bottom there are problems.  Again those making $30,000 a year have $30,000 in disposable income; those making $30,001 have $1430 to live off of for one whole year.  Likewise as one goes up the ladder the same imbalance continues.  Only until ones income has cross the $58,571 dollar mark, is he bringing home as much as is that person making $30,000 a year.  In fact, someone making $40,000 a year is bringing home the exact equivalent of someone making $11,430 a year…

And this is supposed to be fair….

To hide this fact from you, those advocating a fair tax coach the terms in percentages….  that for one, makes it hard for all of us non-math majors to see how unfair their proposal is, and two,  one can accept that paying the same percentage is fair because it sounds more fair…

Unfortunately whether you coach it in percentages or dollars, it is still the same principle…

The US has $5.8 trillion in annual taxable compensation…..  We need $1.4 Trillion of that each year for discretionary spending.  Do the percentage and we find that it is….. 24.13%….

So everyone pays one quarter for every dollar earned.   If you are rich, that’s a lot of money.  Presidential Romney pays less than 13% on the one year he would show us.  It is a 11% jump for him.  (Remember this is what gets paid; there are no other deductions to diminish the totals in a flat tax scheme).  An 11% jump?  About time he paid his fair share!!!

Again, that sounds great.  But of those 81 making over $50,000,000 a year… only make up 0.00005% of the population.

On the other hand, these starting from the bottom, get hit pretty hard…..

• <$10,000  = $7500 live on income
• <$20,000  = $15,000 live on income
• <$30,000  = $22,500 live on income
• <$40,000  = $30,000 live on income
• <$50,000  = $37,500 live on income
• <$60,000  = $45,000 live on income

So what we are saying is that it would be fair to simply suck 25% of taxable wages right out of our economy.

A curious question.  So how does a “fair tax” impact ones economy? Aside from the obvious that we now have to step up assistance payment to the lower echelons thereby incurring even more of an expense,  sucking this much money out that was previously untaxed,  actually makes quite a dent.

If  we are taxing 25% of all wages under $60,000, those 122 million of us are turning over $432 billion out of the $2.73 trillion all of us making under $60,000 earned…. sucking it out from our economy into the coffers of the US Treasury.

The cumulative wages of those few (42,000) making over $450,000 come up to close to $426 billion…  We take that amount and cull our 25% , the government gets $106 billion  and those few get to keep  the remainder, $320 billion .

So if you believe the “fair” tax is truly “fair” you subscribe to the belief that it is “fair” for someone to live off $7500, well under the cost of living,  and then get reimbursed with food stamps, Medicaid, and Earned Income Tax Credit, simply so that someone making $50,000,000 each year gets to pay the same rate because saying so makes it “fair”…

If we decided to give a tax break again to those making under $10,000,  all of those 38 million earning an aggregate of  $152 billion would have their portion of  income tax spread out across the rest of America’s taxpayers.  Just to only spread that to the top echelon alone, if those earning over $400,000 paid the entire amount of the $38 billion taken from those earning under $10,000, it would amount to only a total cumulative tax rate of 33.8%…

Which is pretty fair….

Because the truth is, that through manipulation of tax laws and the politicization of deductions within the tax structure, we don’t really have an income tax here in the United States of America.  What we do have, is a tax on income over those amounts required for deemed necessary expenses.

If you are wealthy and you still feel you are paying more of your money out in taxes, there is something fair you can do about that…. pay your employees a lot more.  The more they make, the more of the burden of the tax load they can afford to take away from you.   There is a very good reason right now, they are now paying less in taxes.

They are making a lot less ….  Likewise, you should be paying a lot more in taxes, because…. you are making a lot more.

That is fair.

 

 

 

Please Make Them Go Away!!

Tomorrow, is the day… like a wedding, can’t wait for it to finally be over so life can go on again…. But there is one last thing to do.

Look at the Republican Party. The only reason Romney is doing well, is because he pivoted in the first debate, and became a liberal. His past track record had almost pushed him to the point of no return, until he reinvented himself upon that first debate stage. In other words, Romney is now the more liberal candidate, if one just looks at what he has said since October 4th.

However the old message is still prevalent in Delaware’s Republican exoskeleton. Kovach who once was considered a decent person, is now a compromised decent person. Kevin Wade, is nothing more than a word to rhyme with suede. Jeff Craig wants us to believe that if you can run a 16 X 40 foot retail outlet buried in the middle of a Fairfax strip mall, you can run the entire state’s government. Greg Lavelle believes that if you trash your opponent hard enough, you will get elected. Cathy Cloutier believes that no one gives enough of a hoot, making it so simple that she can be endorsed by the pro choice and pro life movements in the same election. Evan Quietsch believes the United Nations has set up a secret outpost somewhere in the woods of the 11th District, and that his challenger is the Manchurian Candidate who is actually from Manchuria. Rick Jensen has to ignore 99% of a story to make his case in support of any Republican who shows up on his show. Dori Conner, is running “Go, Go William Penn” down in Cavalier Country. NCCE Blake has to put stickers on his campaign signs, that say “I’m not Tom Gordan.” Then there is DelawarePolitics.Net, which although it has great people, they all get their orders from Homer Simpson. There is Brian Pettyjohn who, whenever his name gets mentioned, reminds one of the Lollypop Guild soliciting a hooker on the side of the Yellow Brick Road… And then, there was Two Timing Booth, kicked out for…. oh my. Don’t even get me started on Bodenweiser…. And above all this mess, flies the green faced witch on her magic broom, saying 2014, 2014…..

What happened? Siegler, is this what happens when you put the NRA actually in charge of something?

From top to bottom this party is (I’ll bend over backwards and be very nice here)…. dysfunctional… It is time for it to go away….

I heard a caller put it very well on Al Masciti this morning. Business needs representation. With this party they don’t have it. What they do have is Jack Markell, Chip Flowers, and Beau Biden, working with them as well as representing “we the people” who simultaneously do the necessary work for these businesses as well as us who depend on their health to live well ourselves…..

Delaware works better as a single party state than as a two party one…. Why? Simply put, everyone is an individual again. There is no reason NOT to work with someone who’s viewpoint is different from yours… It is called “compromise” and with today’s Republican Party from the top down, that compromise gene is simply not in their chromosomes……

Now here is my argument… Any vote for any Republican, weakens our state. I’m guessing we need an 85/15 democratic majority to permanently make this party go away…. I’m worried that many in Delaware may not vote this time because our national election is a foregone conclusion, and really, there is no reason to suspect or worry that any Republican will win….

Here is why you must… Your vote against the Republican Party, is needed to make it be gone forever….. We need single party government now more than ever… WE need cooperation between workers and businesses, and only one party, the Democratic one, can provide that.

Some say we need another voice to balance out one party rule… We will have them. 21 separate voices in the Senate, and 45 separate ones in the House, but only if they are all Democrat … Every person is an individual, and every person has to represent their district. There are some conservative districts, there are some progressive districts. but it still will take a majority to get anything passed.

At least if there is only one party, they will get things done the old fashioned way. The conservatives will express their needs, the progressives will express their needs, and some type of compromise all can live with, will get hammered out….

That can’t happen if there are Republicans anywhere in government to mess things up…..

So do your civic duty… Vote Democratic or Libertarian, or any another candidate…. Just make Republicans go away…. I used to like watching cartoons on Saturday… Now, that I have to watch them 365 days at 24/7, it is too much…. (Now, where’s that Advil?)

Make them go away.

Breaking: Tea Bagger Killed By Squirrels In Wisconsin!!!!

Photo Courtesy of Soggy Log

They thought he was nuts.

For Those Who Follow DelawarePolitics.Net

I’m trying to put all your ideas together into one package. So, let me get this right… All you are asking is for, is a country where:

1) There is no universal healthcare.
2) Few entitlement programs.
3) Low Flat Tax System.
4) Faith based Government.
5) A deep reverence for God.
6) Extremely strict rules against abortion.
7) Marriage has already been strictly defined as between man and woman.
8) Homosexuality is a sin, and illegal.
9) Dress Codes are strictly enforced.
10) Tattoos, piercings, baggy pants, are banned.
11) Has the Death Penalty which they aren’t shy about using.
12) Strong private school system with religious focus.
13) Widespread dependency on oil and natural gas drilling.
14) Growing nuclear program
15) Nonexistent environmental nuisances
16) Culture that promotes family and stereotyped roles for men and women.

I’ve endeavored to put all your values on one page. I share your frustration because today, ever since 2008, it seems like America is moving further and further away from these values.

But you don’t have to be frustrated anymore. I have looked far and wide and have discovered a place already in existence that has those values in place, and more. If you sorely long for those values above, it is sincerely a place where you and your family would be very happy.

It is Iran.

You don’t have to pay me. I don’t need any commission. Just glad to help a fellow Delawarean out…. No problem.

Of Course Mother Nature Hates Republicans!

Many of the areas hit by the storm had also been hit by Irene. In New Jersey’s Hamilton Township, Tom Jacobsen also recalled heavy spring flooding and a particularly heavy winter before that.

“I’m starting to think we really ticked off Mother Nature somehow, because we’ve been getting spanked by her for about a year now,” he said while grabbing some coffee at a convenience store…..

OF COURSE YOU DID, DUMMY. YOU VOTED FOR REPUBLICANS!

Quick Solution to Debt Ceiling Crises

Today the White House issued this Executive Order.

“Should the debt ceiling not be lifted in time by May 16, in order to prevent the Treasury from running out of funds, I am hereby using the emergency powers given to the Chief Executive by the Constitution, to temporarily suspend the Bush Tax Cuts until: 1) either we can legally borrow the funds to continue paying on our commitments, or 2) we bring our debt down to the 2008 level by having much more tax revenue pour in.

This is in effect, immediately, and I have instructed the IRS to recalculate all 2010 tax forms over the level of $2 million dollars, and asses those individuals and companies, for the differences.

We must take this action because Republicans want to pay politics with your lives. As Chief Executive, I am responsible to you, not them. I won’t let that happen.

With these tax cuts out of the way, and with our austerity programs already in effect, that windfall of profit the Treasury will receive, will be entirely funneled towards the paying off our debt.

This policy will continue until Republicans can act reasonably and in a productive fashion.

Barack Obama.

Shift of Power: Republican Implosion

In retrospect one could almost have predicted it.

We had a race with no appointed leader in either party and we had to find out who was the best by an old fashioned fight-off….

Republicans made up their party’s mind up first, they chose McCain… The democrats took a little longer, but despite their internal battles, more Americans than ever went to vote…

That last line says it all.

So while Democrats are trying to figure our just how they won, so they can race to the publishers with their book contracts…. Republicans are trying to figure out how they lost to a such a clean, articulate guy, after all, that’s the definition of Mitt Romney. But Republicans even lost “market share” among those bitter folks who cling to their guns and religion!

So while Republicans were poking out each others eyes in an Iron Man contest, I thought I would add a few fingers of my own…

Sarah Palin is a dead herring.. Obviously a large part of the party base likes their candidate to be a pillow, full of fluff, able to change shape a little, but not able to do damage when used in anger… That is what Palin turned out to be… Even at the Republican governor’s conference, her diction was still just a stream of words, randomly thrown together, that really says nothing….when one disses the video and reads the transcripts…. I think were she to run again, the opposition should offer a run to Britney Spears, who might pull in more votes for the same reason Sarah Palin does….

The real contender (if Republicans actually want one) turns out to be Huckabee.. The longest lasting contender to McCain…. Who, just incidentally, has spent the last 8 months writing a book about….. the future of the Republican party….. (Can you say…….”Perfect timing”?) All: “Perfect timing….”

TIME covers it, _you can get a brief synopsis here) but in Huckabee the Republicans have something every other candidate lacked… A human being who listens to people, thinks through his argument, and responds with a real answer… maybe not the one you wanted to hear… but you know its real and you know that is what he will do….

Sort of like the candidate the Democrats settled upon this go-around.

In his book, Mike Huckabee has some nice things to say about….

Mitt Romney: The former Massachusetts governor’s record was “anything but conservative until he changed the light bulbs in his chandelier in time to run for president.” And he reminds us that Romney suggested, during one debate, more investment in high-yield derivative stocks as a solution to economic woes. “Let them eat stocks!” Huckabee jokes. (Dave clean that egg off your face).

Fred Thompson: Huckabee maintains that Thompson’s biggest mistake was strategic: he didn’t understand the need to expand the Republican Party beyond its base. “Fred Thompson never did grasp the dynamics of the race or the country, and his amazingly lackluster campaign reflected just how disconnected he was with the people, despite the anticipation and expectation that greeted his candidacy,”

Conservative Christian leaders: “It was like playing Whac-a-Mole at the arcade — whatever issue I addressed, another one surfaced as a ‘problem’ that made my candidacy unacceptable.”

Elders of the social-conservative movement: as being “more enamored with the process, the political strategies, and the party hierarchy than with the simple principles that had originally motivated the Founders.” Later, Huckabee writes, “I lamented that so many people of faith had moved from being prophetic voices — like Naaman, confronting King David in his sin and saying, ‘Thou art the man!’ — to being voices of patronage, and saying to those in power, ‘You da’ man!’ ” (Someone got the name wrong: It’s supposed to be “Nathan”)

Texas-based Rev. John Hagee: “I asked if he had prayed about this and believed this was what the Lord wanted him to do,” Huckabee writes of the conversation. “I didn’t get a straight answer.” Months later, McCain rejected Hagee’s endorsement because of controversial remarks the pastor had made about biblical interpretations.

The “real threat” to the Republican Party: “not so much concerned with the libertarian candidate Ron Paul’s Republican supporters, as he is with a strain of mainstream fiscal-conservative thought that demands ideological purity, seeing any tax increase as apostasy and leaving little room for government-driven solutions to people’s problems. “I don’t take issue with what they believe, but the smugness with which they believe it,”

Faux-Cons: “aren’t interested in spirited or thoughtful debate, because such an endeavor requires accountability for the logical conclusion of their argument.”

National media: “”Reporters facilitate the greedy and grubby process whereby too many elections go to the highest bidder and his sharpie hirelings,” he writes. He remains sore about the degree to which a candidate’s credibility is judged by his or her bank account and notes that during the debates, he was often asked about religion while the other candidates dealt with questions of government policy. Why, he asks, was a “floating cross” in the window of one of his ads such a media controversy when reporters gave a pass to a Barack Obama direct-mail piece that obviously photographed the Democrat before a large Christian cross? ”

The obvious answer to that simple question (and I’m surprised that Huckabee does not understand it), is that reporters tend to be of rather stupid heritage, often barely getting through to their graduation (again if at all), due to the copious amounts of beer consumed throughout the journey of their academic process.. Everyone who goes to college… knows that.. Candidates on the other hand,….. usually tend to do well in their academics, John McCain being excluded of course as the exception that proves the rule….

(By the way… Chuck Norris really does work out on his Total Gym at home).

But what Huckabee’s book actually does show, and it is a must read for those who love politics… (meaning the people side)… is that the same populism existed on both sides of the party divide…. In one party, it was allowed to express itself and the populist candidate won….. On the other side…. it was squelched and deemed dead before it started, and left to squander in the land of the unmentioned….. Had the natural evolution worked its magic…ie had the spotlight not been so intently focused this time around, to wither any new growth before it had a chance to root,……Republicans everywhere could have still lost, but without the bitter recriminations with which they gouge each others eyes today…

It could have been a closer race..

Which leads all to the brilliant fact of wisdom… ” You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.”

American people because of their mass, are inherently more in tune with reality, than any of our party’s appointed leaders… Our best leaders are those ones who connect with us.

Who Is This?

This is a guessing game. It’s supposed to be fun. You do the guessing. I’ll reveal the answer at some point in the future. Bottom line, I am interested in how this plays out. (To keep answers out of moderation, no links please.) You may use the categories above for some helpful hints, but knowing me, don’t expect to find the answer that easily.) 🙂

1) Foreign policy/defense: I want American imperialism rolled back and American interventionism halted, as the same time we begin to pull free from the military/industrial complex by slashing the budgets for defense and homeland security to reasonable levels.

2) Civil libertarian issues: I want to see gay marriage legalized; drugs decriminalized; Real ID abolished; the Patriot Act gutted; and immigrants viewed as human beings. I want intrusive government the hell out of my life.

3) Fiscal sanity: I want a government that stops growing and taking an ever-expanding bite out of my paycheck; I want to see wasteful programs cut, and to have Congress faced with the same sort of imperative the Delaware General Assembly had to face this year: balancing the budget.

Why We Blog

Because that……. is what we do.

Is Conservative the New “Dirty” Word?

McCain won Florida. Despite the Romney campaign spitting out this.

I have chastised several Mitt supporters by telling them that this ad does a lot to elevate McCain to “hero” status. A man so beloved by both parties hasn’t happened since George Washington left office.

What the hell were they thinking by showing it?

Apparently Florida thought the same way I did, and went for McCain by 4.9%. (Only Zogby came close with a 4.0 prediction. All the other pollsters, well…. to be polite let us just say that from now on they’ve got credibility problems.)

Listening to conservative talk shows was actually fun today. first Rush Limbaugh!

“Here is the bottom line, ladies and gentlemen,” Limbaugh said. “I think this is it. There was a lot of anxiety among a lot of conservatives about Senator McCain. It’s simply indisputable. But there was no figure in our roster of candidates who rose up to challenge him or galvanize conservative support. All the candidates on our side, for various reasons, are uninspiring or worse.”

Take that Mitt Romney, Giuliani, Ron Paul, Thompson, and Huckabee? According to the self appointed king of conservatism, YOU ARE UNINSPIRING OR WORSE! Take that supporters of these candidates: “E“, David Anderson, Dave Burris, Frank Knotts, Priscilla Rakestraw! Your judgment and intellect itself has been called into question. What’s wrong with you fake conservative supporters, …..too hyped up on your painkillers to make accurate assessments anymore?

Ladies and gentlemen,……….now do you see why we say Rush Limbaugh has no idea what he is talking about? Now do you understand how we have taken him as a grain of salt since 1992?……. He just dissed 100% of the Republican Party!………Unless of course you too subscribe to the feelings he espouses……..which I doubt very highly.

But he wasn’t the only one:

Hannity’s forums are full of despondent Conservatives crying for their mother’s milk. Guess what….with Conservatives currently receiving only an 8% approval rating, they aren’t getting it. (Use Cheney’s approval rating as a base).

Even Laura Ingraham was perplexed on where to take tonights show, now that it was apparent that McCain was on his way to the White House, and the Conservative talk radio, which had done everything in it power to put McCain back to where we was just two months ago, ie. on the very bottom gasping for air from the media’s waterboarding, was on the outside looking in.

Duh.

Get this. When Bush ran in South Carolina he touted his win as the consummate proof that Conservatives were behind his candidacy. And today, as we saw ten days ago, they are behind McCain. Florida Republicans, too conservative for Giuliani, by a winning plurality of 4.9%, are also behind John McCain! Only in Michigan and Nevada, certainly centers of liberalism, has Romney carried the day.

So one can assume, that those long-time spokesmen of Conservatism, have gone the way of the Whigs and Federalist. Extinct.

And why is that? Because the Conservative policies they have put in place over the last 7 years DO NOT WORK! One can trumpet an untried philosophy and win the argument. But one cannot go against 7 years of irrefutable evidence emphatically showing that the philosophy in question, is an abject failure.

So after today, Conservatism has a new face, one that Republicans and many Democrats endorse. If Republicans wish to have any chance of winning the White House, and despite most consensus, they still have as good as chance as any if they encyst those who hijacked their party in 2000, and blaze new ground.

Conservatism is alive and well. Its only problem is that it has the wrong people espousing it. Someone who has survived sitting in a four by four cage in honor of America probably has a better grasp on what America stands for, than someone digesting up to 25 painkillers a day sitting in front of a microphone.

No….. Conservative is not the new “dirty” word. But then again, neither is “Liberal”.

“Stupid” is the new dirty word. If one wants to find it on the airwaves try looking on any one of the Clear Channel stations scattered across this country.

Republicans have spoken. And they aren’t stupid.