Let’s put tribalism and sycophancy aside for a moment shall we? Let’s talk about the GOP tax plan:
It’s complete crap.
When you start with the premise that you have to “pay for” tax cuts it is clear you have no idea what real tax reform is about. When you fund Planned Parenthood but look at removing the adoption tax credit you can’t claim to be the “pro-life” party. When you’ve got a tax deduction for the maintenance of private jets (added by a Democrat it’s worth noting) you can’t claim this is a “middle-class tax cut.”
The bottom line is that spending is out of control. Part of the reason is everyone has their sacred cows. For Republicans it’s agriculture subsidies and defense spending. For Democrats it’s everything EXCEPT defense spending.
Even defense spending has to be looked at carefully (my article on Monday I’ll detail some of my experiences with this). Everything should be on the table and the size and scope of the federal government needs to be dramatically reduced. The GOP has made it clear since President Trump came to power that they are no more interested in cutting spending than the Democrats are, except when there’s a Democratic President.
The GOP tax bill is an abomination. It’s a pale shadow of the massive campaign promises that routinely go by the wayside after an election. At this point, with their utter failure to secure our border and deliver on the promise of repealing the debacle that is Obamacare, the Republicans in Congress seem determined to get SOMETHING done on tax reform, lest they anger those they work for to the point where they are unable to secure reelection.
Now, when I say “those they work for” I don’t mean “we the people.” I mean their rich campaign donors like the Mercers and the Kochs and a hundred others. The lack of any REAL reform in the tax code is evidence of this.
At the same time, the Democrats don’t appear to be interested in the least in reforming a massive tax code that give breaks only to those that can afford the best attorneys and CPAs. No surprise there. The Democrats want as complicated a tax code as possible, because with volumes of tax code comes more control over the tax payer, which is what they really want.
Even though the tax bills the GOP has proposed would do little to nothing to break the big government hold on the people, the Democrats must oppose it for purely political reasons. As much as the GOP wants “a win” the Democrats equally want them not have a major legislative achievement in this Congress.
As per usual, the Democratic Party has appealed to the lowest common denominator with this ad featuring Elizabeth Warren:
GOP claims a $1.5 trillion corporate tax cut will help working families. But who’s to say corporations won’t just run off with the money? pic.twitter.com/kTsaT1qhtm
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) November 22, 2017
The GOP might find themselves with overwhelming popular support that even the opposition party couldn’t stand against if they would simply find their backbone and create REAL tax reform. So we are clear, to me real tax reform looks like one of the following:
1) A 10% flat tax on every working person in America, whether they be a citizen or resident alien. A 15% flat business tax. (Thanks to my friend Jeff Clark for this thought process)
2) The “Fair Tax” which is basically a sales tax on everything. Even illegal income would be taxed this way.
3) The so-called “Nuetral Tax.” I’ll detail this one later in another article, but basically each state decides how best to raise federal revenue.
What I know for certain is this: No tax plan is truly reform until it breaks the power the IRS has over the average citizen. As of 2015 the Internal Revenue Service had nearly 80,000 employees, which is 30,000 more than the FBI, DEA, and ATF combined. The budget for the IRS in 2015 was $11.2 Billion. Ironically, the institution charged with collecting money from the citizenry is also one of the most wasteful and extraneous budget expenditures in the federal government.
An alternate tax like the ones listed above would allow us to cut the IRS to a fraction of its size, and remove all power it has to bully the hard-working taxpayers that make this country happen
Of course, this is a pipe team as things now stand. Neither the Republicans nor Democrats this level of tyranny to be removed from the federal government since it takes away much of their power. Both sides are simply trying to maintain or grow their power.
When the average citizen has finally had enough, and come to realize that perhaps it is long past time to continue thinking in binary terms, then we can have real change. Until then we will continue to be slaves a political aristocracy that the Constitution supposedly abolished.
