Professor Elam

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My Fellow Americans

Sat Jan 22 2011

Fellow Americans

You will recall that I came to office as an Independent, neither Republican nor Democrat. The Republican Party imploded when it was simultaneously wanted to cut taxes to zero, spend $1 billion on defense and invade Albania and Tunisian promising to do for them what we did for Afghanistan. Afghanistan began a Facebook page fidiculing Republicans pointing out that there was still no water one could safely drink even after American spent $1 Trillion improving Afghanistan, noting  however the stock price of United Technologies was up. 

The Democrat Party imploded when the Democrat controlled  state governments of California started paying their bills with Netflix coupons, Chicago paid police pensions with Chicago Style Pizza coupons, and New York banned all meat consumption at restaurants sending 227 MCD franchises in NYC into bankruptcy. 

Americans voted for change and that is what I bring you tonight. 

My plan, plain and simple, is as follows. 

My opinion on the income tax  is the same as Walter Williams, 
first we need to repeal the sixteenth amendment or whatever it was that allowed an income tax or we will have both, no good
second I agree with Tom Sowell that congress should be tied to 10% of GDP on what they can spend, no deficits, just like a state, a real budget
third, somehow tax law changes would have to be subject to national election to keep congress from tinkering with it, if congress gets more money they spend it foolishly
fourth a national sales tax is the only fair tax, consume less pay less, with a minimum  exemption for of course 'the poor'
fifth we spend a ridiculous amount of time and effort preparing tax returns, keeping records or lobbying for changes like this reparration
sixth if obama were serous about repealing regulations he would never put the regulation writers in charge of finding what they did that was a bad idea, bad english but you get the idea
So, repeal the income tax amendment, a national sales tax of say 5% that only a national election could change, no corporate income tax, no estate tax, no cap gains tax, let corporations deduct the dividends paid eliminating double taxation of dividend, let's see, no personal exemption for more than five to a family, if you want more kids you pay for them not me, 
how is that for a start, then accountants could help people make money by improving business instead of hawking tax schemes
AS for the Federal govt
The Education Dept does not educate anyone
The Agriculture Dept does not grow anything and has more employees than we have farmers
The Transportation Dept does not transport anyone
The Energy Dept does not produce Energy and gasoline is over three bucks
The Commerce Dept does not do anything I can reliably identify, nor could anyone at Commerce when asked
The Dept of Interior has nearly let Yellowstone burn to the ground, something that has never happened at Disneyland or Six Flags
I would 
cut all fed salaries 10-20% depending on pay level,for those that still have a job,  eliminate immediate vesting for congress and senate, they get the same Social Security and health care as the rest of us
to further save funds, Congress, the building is closed, from now on all 535 senators and Congress stay at home in their districts where their contitutents are and vote electronically
eliminate all Fed cabinet offices except the original four state, treasury, atty general, defense, all czars and appointed boards are gone, that's a start, stop SS for all under 45, sell western land and buy annuities for those 45-65, allow health care iras repealing obamacare
well that's a start….
The President
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2 responses to “My Fellow Americans”

  1. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    If you are a professor, you should be ashamed at your astonishing lack of critical thinking regarding Fairtax.
    While Walter Williams has no obligation to be truthful or intellectual, he is after all an entertainer, a politicial; we can expect him to deal in half truths or outright deceptions.
    You, however, should have at least WONDERED if there is a flip side to this “Fairtax”.
    While its true we need a new tax code, it does not follow that Fairtax is even logical.
    Turns out Fairtax is riddled with absurdities, it is a house of cards. I will explain one absurdity here – you can decide if my reasoning is valid, and of course you can and should examine Fairtax anew.
    Fairtax fine print has a massive NEW tax, bringing in over a trillion dollars, and central to their math. Without this trillion dollars, their plan falls apart. Yet they mention this massive new tax in ONE sentence. ONE!
    It wasn’t this hidden feature of Fairtax that turned me off to it. I figured there would be an explanation. So I asked fairtax official spokesmen about it.
    Fairtax officials answers were so absurd, so far fetched, that there is little question that Fairtax leaders know full well that their own plan is nonsense.
    Oh, all that about simplification, no tax forms, about everyone would have to pay it — all true. Problem is, that 23% would not bring in nearly enough. They knew that 23% would not bring enough enough, so rather than admit a national sales tax would be 50 or 60% –they lied. Yes, they lied.
    They PRETEND in their fine print to get a trillion dollars in this absurd “tax on government”. Every city government, every state government. Every county government.
    In less words than THIS paragraph, they mention this entire trillion dollar tax. No explanation, no clarity, no clue give how it would work, who would collect it, how city or states would pay for it. Nothing.
    Of the perhaps million sentences in Fairtax books, web sites, “research” and videos, they give ONE sentence to the public that even mentions this tax.
    Even more absurd, their spokesman admit proudly that they have NO PLANS to inform city or state government officials about this massive tax. None. Not only do they apparently hide this massive tax, they proudly claim they aren’t ever going to tell city and state officials about it.
    As the Fairtax spokesman told me “If they have questions — have them call us.”
    Sound like a transpaprent plan to you?
    Like Bertrand Russell said “2 + 2= 5, therefore, I am the pope.”
    Fairtax may sound great — I thought it was great myself. But then I read the fine print.
    The fine print itself did not turn me off to Fairtax — but the absurd answers that Fairtax spokesman gave about the fine print did.
    There are a number of economist and CPAs who have completely refuted the absurdity of Fairtax, and exposed it as a farce. Personally, I think my blog does it best
    http://fairtaxfineprint.blogspot.com/
    We need a simple and fair tax code — absolutely. And I wish Fairtax were it. But the simple truth is, for a sales tax to work, to bring in anything NEAR what our tax code brings in now, the sales tax rate would be over 60%.
    That’s right OVER 60%. And Fairtax knows that. The Joint Committee on Taxation reported this very clearly in 2005. Even if everyone bought the same amount of goods as they do now (an impossibility) a sales tax to bring in what our tax code brings in now, would be 60%.
    And there would have to be some evasion — people NOT buying new things as much, for example, to avoid the tax. Depending on that evasion rate, the actual sales tax could go up to 90%.
    Of course, long before the tax rate got to 90%, the economy would collapse. Only a small percentage of people would buy as much stuff as they bought before. Most people would simply avoiding buying new.
    http://fairtaxfineprint.blogspot.com/

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  2. Dennis Elam Avatar
    Dennis Elam

    Students
    Clearly this is an auto seek message against the Fair Tax. Otherwise he would have noticed I plan to eliminate considerable govt expense.
    Walter Williams makes the cogent point about Fair Tax that first you must abolish the income tax or you would have both.
    There is not such thing as a simple and fair tax code if Congress can fiddle with it.

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