[geeks] Taxes

[Phil Stracchino]

Jonathan C. Patschke wrote:
> On Fri, 23 May 2008, Michael Parson wrote:
> 
>> This is the only tax proposal out there written by economists, not
>> politicians.  It removes the power of taxation from the government and
>> gives power back to the citizens, which is why the Congress doesn't
>> like it.
> 
> I have a better tax proposal:  limit the scope of the national
> government to what the Constitution defines and lower the taxes to
> support that.  Without entitlement programs, a standing army, regulation
> of intrastate commerce, and all the other 'services' the national
> government forces upon us, they could probably be funded solely though
> bake sales.

These days, I'm not certain going without a standing military is wholly 
feasible.  The level of training and inventory required is too high to 
be entirely replaced by a part-time volunteer militia.

However, it COULD probably be replaced by that volunteer militia plus a 
highly trained core rapid-response force ... such as, say, the United 
States Marine Corps.  The USMC having been established in 1775 as the 
Continental Marines, there is a strong constitutional-law argument that 
the Constitution (which was drafted in 1786, adopted in 1787, and became 
effective in 1789) does not prohibit, and was not intended to prohibit, 
the maintenance of the USMC, the USMC having not been promptly disbanded 
upon adoption of the Constitution.  This would be especially true if we 
were to, say, repeal every "gun control" law passed since, oh, 1900, and 
stop trying to demonize guns for political ends as being the cause of 
violent crime.  But look what we're saying here.


However desirable it is to return government to its Constitutional 
limits, though, it's not feasible to do so at a single step.  Something 
like the Fair Tax would be an excellent first step, not least because 
every time a citizen bought something, they would be reminded of how 
much of each dollar they just spent is consumed by the government.


-- 
   Phil Stracchino, CDK#2     DoD#299792458     ICBM: 43.5607, -71.355
   alaric at caerllewys.net   alaric at metrocast.net   phil at co.ordinate.org
          Renaissance Man, Unix ronin, Perl hacker, Free Stater
                  It's not the years, it's the mileage.