Tax fix

I believe one of the ways to solve our economic problems in short it is to diminish the voice of the non-employed and students.  Voting should be a right not a privilege of those who are productive members of society.  Currently anyone over the age of 18 has he ability to vote.  This means that if someone is eligible to vote and not working either because they're a student or they are on unemployment or welfare has the capacity to influence the direction of our country.  Not only that but it creates a portion of society that influences our government and garners promises and support for that group.  As we see in government today the Liberals cater to this group.  If this group had no voice then there would be no social programs.  If there were still no social programs than that group would cease to exist at least to the point where the government is involved.  This would force people into the workplace and reduce the unemployment rate.  Now of course there would still be people unemployed, and there would still be students.  I believe it was Pres. Roosevelt who instituted most of our social programs for the needy.  All this did was in enlarge the group to what you see today.  Prior to that when a person was in need they went to their family for help.  If they had no family they went to their local church for help.  The government has tried to make the family and the church ineffectual ever since.  When I say the government I mean the progressive Liberal agenda.  See this agenda isn't really about helping people it's about control.  The larger they can make the group of dependents the more powerful they become.  It's really that simple!

What would I do?

First, change the voting requirements.  Make it so a person can't vote until a person has paid taxes for over 60 consecutive months.  Then and only then will they know what it's like to have their money taken from them by the government.  Of course many people will cry foul and say it's a constitutional right to vote and that it should not be hindered in any form.  They would also say that it's not fair that a certain segment of society in history to different.  I would submit to you that it's not fair that any individual or group of people is treated any different.  But yet that is what you have today.  Individuals like myself who have worked all their life and paid taxes all her life to fund social programs for a group of people who don't need to exist.  Take away the programs and you take away the group.  Subsequently you would have a larger pool of productive members of society and would be able to dismantle the overcomplicated much too large government  we see today.  It is unfair that I am 49 years old and when I go into a store I see an able bodied 25-year-old using food stamps.  Yet I have been struggling with a bad back my entire life.

Secondly, I would institute a flat tax.  It has been proven time and time again that a flat tax would pump much more money into the state and federal coffers.  According to Freedomworks.org Americans are paying the highest taxes in the nation's history.  The current complex tax system includes several inequities.  It penalizes married couples by making them pay higher taxes than single individuals.  And many Americans face a death tax that claims a significant portion of their estate after they die.  Late Noble Prize winning economist Milton Friedman first proposed a flat tax in 1962.  Nearly thirty years later, the idea gained national prominence when FreedomWorks Chairman Dick Armey introduced a flat tax proposal on the House floor.  He pledged  that a simple flat tax would allow Americans to “file their taxes on a form the size of a postcard.” 

Unfortunately, the Armey flat tax failed to pass Congress. To this day, we are still stuck with one of the most comlicated tax codes in the world.  Replacing the current messy tax code with a flat rate tax would be a huge improvement.  Since the early 1990’s, the flat tax revolution has spread across the world.  Currently,25 nations have adopted a single-rate flat tax system.  Most of these nations have tax rates below 20 percent. This month, Romania’s Senate just approved a proposal to lower their popular flat tax from 16 to10 percent. 
After implementing a flat tax, nearly all of these foreign nations have experienced economic growth and lower unemployment rates.  Between 2001 and 2004, The Hoover Institute found that tax revenue actually rose by 79.7 percent. Even a New York Times headline read “Russia Imposes Flat Tax on Income, and Its Coffers Swell.”  When people find their taxes to be low and sensible, they are willing to produce and invest more.  So why hasn’t the United States joined the flat tax revolution? Powerful special interest groups have blocked any efforts to improve the tax code.

According to Mike Pence, our current tax code has “special preferences and tax loopholes that Congress and an army of lobbyists have built into the tax code over time.  These fuel special interests and generally benefit one person, business or industry over another.” No wonder so many special interest groups are hostile to a flat tax. It would actually treat people equally.

Just imagine filling out your tax forms in five minutes with a flat tax.  According to the IRS, the average American taxpayer spends 26.5 hours preparing and sending in their taxes. Even IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman admits that he uses a tax preparer to file his own taxes, “I've used one for years.  I find it convenient.  I find the tax code complex so I use a preparer.”  Over a day of valuable time is lost each year that taxpayers could have spent being productive, spending time with family and friends or any way that they choose.  

Just my two cents,
Doug