Quote:
Originally Posted by zeek
By that reckoning the lot of the average American hasn't improved in 43 years. It's a perfect time for a huge tax cut for billionaires and cuts to safety net programs, Social Security and Medicare.
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Social security and Medicare are examples of the "improvements" made.
Everyone agrees that Social Security in theory is better than what we had. The problem is that we are about to find out in practice if it is better.
This program put the entire countries retirement account in the hands of politicians. People that no reasonable person would allow to have access to their bank account. They have raided the cookie jar repeatedly, taking the money out and replacing it with an IOU, then taking the IOU out and replacing it with a second IOU, etc. If today the program was running great, projected to move along just fine for another 100 years then I would agree that it is a great program that needs to be protected.
But that is not the case. They are predicting that I will not be able to collect from this program even though I have been paying into it for decades. Why? Because the money was stolen. If that is the case then there is no way I agree to give them more money, only an idiot would let a thief rob them blind, and then agree to give more money to the thief.
As for tax reform I believe we have to completely overhaul our tax code so that the only tax paid is a sales tax. It is the simplest and most equitable tax. It completely avoids the concern about globalization and corporations moving their operations overseas. It would eliminate a huge bureaucracy along with all the jobs associated with tax preparation, audits, IRS, lawyers, etc. As a result it would save everyone in the country money. You could also allow certain essentials to be sold without sales tax (milk, eggs, etc) while luxury items could have a higher sales tax.
However, they won't do it. Why? It is cheaper, simpler, more equitable and more humane. Seems that Conservatives would have a lot to like, as well as libertarians, democrats, socialists, etc. No, the issue is that if you do this people will see exactly how much they are really paying in tax with every single purchase. As a result people are much more likely to become thrifty and stop buying so much junk. You would also see a black market for goods unless we could get Canada and Mexico to agree with us.