FairTax Blog
I am contributing to the FairTaxBlog. I haven't decided whether or not to cross post or not, but I will likely at least reference my posts there.
My first post discusses and points out how the current income tax system infringes on many of our freedoms and rights.
Commentary
Give Fairtax a chance? I would LOVE it.
Just, be careful what you wish for.
Fairtax is based on the absurd notion that you can tax the federal government to pay for federal government. How rational people can sit there with a straight face, and say that is possible, is beyond me.
Neal Boortz claims (page 148 Fairtax Book) “the federal government itself will become a major taxpayer.”
Thats like me paying myself 10,000 for cutting my own grass. Oh, I can pretend to pay it. I can write a check to myself. I can even deposit that check. I can do that everyday for a month. But I dont end up with 300,000 dollars.
So when Boortz and others are telling you that taxing the US Navy 4 billion dollars on a 12 billion dollar aircraft carrier, they are blowing smoke. Fairtax taxes every dollar of federal government purchases (and state, local, county).
This money simply CAN not mathematically materialize. So the tax rate can’t be 23%. It would have to be 38% to make up for it.
And that kind of sloppy thinking is in all aspects of Fairtax.
FOr another example - fairtax wants a 23% of the 2 trillion dollar health care industry. A fairtax of 23% would be on all healthcare — that means cancer patients — taxed on surgery, on chemo, on hospitalization.
It means a tax on nursing home patients, knee replacements, kidney transplants, open heart surgeris. It means a tax on the parents of a childhood leukemia victim.
It means exrays — taxed. Second opinion — taxed. Lab tests — taxed. ER care — taxed. Doctor visits - taxed. Back surgeries - taxed. Prescriptions — taxed. Diebetic supplies — taxed.
Fairtax can’t collect tax on health care either — the outcry would be deafening. Congress would quickly rescind it, if it ever passed.
So Fairtax CAN not tax government — and wont be able to tax health care. SO the tax rate would have to ve 50-60% on the rest of the economy.
Now, imagine a 50% sales tax on new homes, or new cars, or rent.
Imagine the outcry from those segments.
THis Fairtax can’t work. It would decimate the economy.
The present tax system DOES infringe on rights, and is a collosal mess. IT really screws people who work for a living, self employed and small businessmen especially.
But since Fairtax is a farce, it doesn't make much difference. Fairtax is nonsense, and its not hard to see why. Googe fairtax absurdity and find out how you are being fooled.
One easy way to see Fairtax is a farce, is to understand that Boortz and Linder write that "the federal government itself will become a major taxpayer."
Nonsense. The federal government can't pay a sales tax to itself any more than it could pay an income tax to itself. Its just nonsense. Utter nonsense.
Since the federal government would have to PAY itself, it can't count that as INCOME to itself. Its a farce transaction, totally bogus.
Its like me writing myself a check for 10,000 dollars a day. Sure I can do it. But at the end of the month, I have exactly the same amount of money. I don't have 300,000 dollars.
If you take away that ONE absurdity ( and there are others) then the Fairtax rate would have to be 50% or higher.
The presidental commission already looked at a national sales tax -- only they didn't pretend to tax the federal government to pay the federal government. Thats the big reason their experts came up with a 57% tax rate.
Have a national sales tax -- fine. But don't use whacky math. Don't pretend you can make the government pay a major (or any) portion of its own taxes.
Didn't Fairtax say 1000 times that "only people pay taxes" when they talk about the folly of taxing corporations?
But somehow by page 148, in the fairtax book, Boortz and Linder forgot that, and now say "The federal government will become a major taxpayer."
Thats major bullship, like the whole plan.