[initially posted Saturday May 5, 2007 - 01:22am (EDT) on 360.yahoo.com by me, but they are soon closing the 360 site]
This is a segway to discuss flat taxes and consumption/sales taxes.
Is it worse to steal something, or is it worse to trick somebody out of the same thing? e.g. I promise to give you $5, but you either see more and demand the rest, or see more and talk me out of the money while I think you are going to give me more. "Theft" vs "Larceny by Trick"
During the last election process (primary and general), I was for the first time in my life fully engaged in the process. I was studying things like I wanted to do a thesis paper on it. Many years before I had heard Rush and other AM radio commentators extol the virtues of a flat tax (maybe as far back as Bill Clinton's first run for President).
In the last election cycle I became EXTREMELY disgruntled with the packaging of particular taxes, namely flat tax and consumption tax. Republicans let these things roll off their tongue as if they are going to give an advantage to poor and middle-class taxpayers; THEY WILL NOT! What infuriated me the most was that something so bad for us (the general population) was made to look so good.
This caused me to wonder, what is more evil, an overbearing felon that intimidates you and through duress steals your money, or your next door neighbor that talks friendly with you all the time, but "borrows" your tools with no intention to return them? It's a bit of a coin toss here at first, but I believe that the felon is at least honest in his theft, where your friendly neighbor is a liar and a thief with a premeditated false alibi (a Repugnantican threefer).
Nice going Republicans, you are the neighbor who steals through deception.
I've already ranted about the flat tax in a previous diary entry, so now I make my case against the consumption tax. Although my dinner typically tops out at a $15.00 plate of food, and I have a large appetite, and a rich person is forced to pay $50.00 minimum for a similar meal (with respect to nourishment) due to their choice of a more exclusive restaurant, I as a member of the not rich class will ultimately pay a greater part of the tax burden than those with more means. "How?" you say, "the rich plate is over three times the price of your plate thus the rich man pays triple the taxes than you do!" My reply is that is part of the deception; for typically the rich man has five to ten times my income at the least, and controls about fifty times the assets or more. With that huge disparity of wealth income and power they only pay a small multiple more than I, but for their additional price they get better services, so it is well worth the marginal cost to them. Compounding this problem is the idea that their are so many fewer rich people than their are poor and middle-class people that it ultimately means that the rich as a whole contribute very little to the total tax burden. If their are 100 to 1,000 poor and middle class citizens for each single rich person, then it means that maybe a third of a percent (0.333%) of the total collected revenues by consumption taxes come from the rich taxpayers, and the rest gets dumped on the poor and middle-class.
Consumption taxes are just flat taxes in a 3-syllable word! Here are a few of those "Sheriff of Nottingham" taxes: gasoline tax, cigarette tax, state sales tax, liquor excise tax, prepared food tax, and a host of others that are so pervasive into our own lives that we just woefully tolerate them as if it is out of our hands.
I believe it is not in fact out of our hands. If lots of people, make noise about this during each upcoming election cycle for about the next 3 or 4 of them it may become a dead issue and not waste time in any debate; talk about it to your friends whenever it gets mentioned, call talk shows when they bring it up or on their open line caller days, write or call your local politician if they mention it like it's something good. Don't let Republicans screw us out of our hard earned while they are whispering sweet nothings in our ears. Tell them if they want to really have a fair tax, then tie it to your current net worth, and recheck it quarterly for rich people and annually for the rest of us. If the rich want to control everything, then it's time they started paying for it proportionately too!
