http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carly_Fiorina

You KEEP MISSING THE POINT! Your family of four example doesn’t pay income taxes, that’s true.

But they pay the 23% tax liability built into EVERYTHING THEY BUY TODAY! That car they buy? 26% of it is Federal taxes. That loaf of bread? 19% of it is in taxes.

The FairTax is a REPLACEMENT tax for everything already built into the system, with lower costs to operate than what we have today; no April 15th ever again.

What part of substitution do you NOT get?

And the homeless you speak of will be no worse off than they are now, because everything they happen to buy TODAY already has the 23% tax built into the cost to make the product. They just won’t be getting the prebate.

And again, you failed to answer my question. What do you propose to do differently? Progressive taxes have been tried and failed. Income taxes have been tried and failed. What’s wrong with trying something different? If it doesn’t work, we can always go back and try something else.

But what if it DOES work?

What alternative do you have for the mess we’re in?

It’s all nonsense. The only way to make this thing remotely revenue neutral for the poor and lower middle class family would be to set the prebate equally to the taxes paid.
Which makes one wonder what the point would be.

The Economic Right is fond of complaining that the poor don’t pay taxes, yet they trot out a plan under which the poor certainly do pay taxes even after prebate and want to claim ‘no harm no foul’.

Sorry, the numbers don’t add up. A family of four with two school age children making $40,000 have no federal income tax liability today. That would not be the case under the (allegedly) Fair Tax.

The (allegedly) Fair Tax is a move to lower marginal tax rates on the wealthy. End. Full stop.

I declare this discussion over.

BUSINESSES DON’T PAY TAXES! Do you not understand that simple concept? Oh, sure, they are CHARGED taxes, but do you think all those nasty big businessmen take money out of their OWN pockets to pay Uncle Sam? Of course not! They build the tax into the price of everything you and I pay for, and pass the tax on to US! Consumers are the ONLY part of society that ultimately pay taxes. If you can’t get past Economics 101, you’ll never understand how the FairTax is better.

Now, we’ve already talked about your first point of contention, so there should be no need to rehash that.

Your second point has a certain amount of merit regarding dependence on government, however, I am willing to agree to the prebate in order to remove objections from the lower income class that they’ll be paying more with the FairTax. They won’t with the prebate.

Your third point is laughable and is simple wealth envy. What is wrong with people being able to pass onto the next generation the fruits of their labors? Why should the government get what each of us earned when we die? Is that our ultimate goal in life? To make sure we take care of giving Uncle Sugar the net result of all our hard work when we die? If so, why should we work so hard? Where’s my incentive to work if its all going to be taken away from me when I die?

See my first point to answer your 4th objection.

Refer to my lowering of costs to answer your 5th objection.

Now that we’ve knocked down EVERY objection you’ve brought up, let’s put it to you this way:

What’s your alternative? Progressive taxes have been tried before and failed. Income taxes certainly haven’t worked. What’s wrong with trying something new? If it works – great! If it fails, we’re no worse off.

And you really have to get away from that “businesses pay taxes” thing. There’s not a business out there that will eat their profit just so that the end consumer doesn’t have to pay some of the businesses tax burden. You can’t hold them up as all that is bad in the world in one sentence, and assign them a good deed in the next.

Oh, and the whole businesses won’t drop prices thing? Have you driven past a gas station lately? Whats the FIRST thing that happens when competing gas stations on opposite corners get gas that is cheaper than what they paid for it last week? Gas prices go down. It’s called competition, and it works. You just have to open your eyes to see it everyday.

That means: 1. Elderly people (or anybody) on a fixed income (or no income) will pay more for their medicines and anything else they spend their money on. 2. The government gives you a monthly prebate (to increase your dependence upon them and you should be afraid of that) 3. Rich people who pass their wealth from generation to generation no longer have to put it in trust to avoid bequeathment taxes (they can just give their children all of their money because there is no income tax) 4. Businesses no longer have to pay taxes so business owners can make more money (more profit) and 5. Poor people will no longer be able to afford new things because the tax is an added cost to the product(businesses that make new things will suffer and businesses that restore old things will prosper).

People who say that the (allegedly) Fair Tax is better than a progressive income tax (where you pay progressively more taxes for the more money that you earn in a year) are not poor people. They are complaining that the tax code is too complex (read: I have to struggle to find my tax breaks). If they had a simple paycheck they would not find the tax code that complex. To make their life easier, and their taxes smaller, they are willing to have the government pay people a check each month mostly because they cannot afford the national sales tax; they are also willing to mess with the tax structure and tax the consumerism of the world’s largest economy (well, used to be), (if income taxing is a disincentive in America then why are so many people working to make more money?) and this will result in businesses making more profit.

In all of this, they allege that it is okay for people to pay these taxes because businesses will lower their prices to them. Uh, no, ain’t gonna happen.

There are NO LOOPHOLES in the FairTax. That is what makes it so FAIR! No exemptions EXCEPT for college tuition. Even the government has to pay it when they purchase items.

When a church buys something today, they pay the tax imbedded in the cost of the product (and by the way, there’s NOTHING in the Constitution that keeps churches from being taxed). When a minister buys a gallon of milk, they pay sales taxes, do they not (yes, they do). The FairTax is a sales tax, G.

It is NOT a flat tax. It is a consumption tax. It is the ONLY fair taxation plan out there. You should read it sometime, and not get your information from Bookman.

The reason for the complexity of the tax code is the chiselers, the loophole being hardly a modern invention. As the loopholes get more elaborate, so must the rules to prevent them.

Let’s take one tiny fact from the vast array of such problems and apply it to a flat tax:

Religious institutions cannot be taxed – that is in the Constitution. So, real fast now: a simple and all inclusive definition of a religious institution that includes the real ones and keeps out your crazy Uncle Louie, who thinks he hears the voice of God on his fillings. Or the fake “minister-by-mail” programs. But you have to include Buddhists, Free thinkers, Jews, Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Zoroastrians, Amish and Wiccans. Only the real ones, though, not the cheats. Except, gosh darn it, there’s the Constitution again, which prevents you from defining cheats by defining the religion or instructing the religion on what they must do.

Vast pronouncements of fairness are easy. Actual fairness is hard. That’s why we have so little of it.

“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.”
H. L. Mencken

First, you can’t back away from your claim that Republicans are fascists. You said Republicans were, and I quote: “a tick away from being fascists, in fact, you could make a good argument that they are already.” No mention of Democrats all all. Now who’s the one lying?

Second, you failed to read my posts earlier. I didn’t vote in the Republicans, either. I’m an independent-minded, common-sense thinking individual who does not vote along party lines, but rather votes according to the precepts of the U.S. Constitution as it was WRITTEN, not interpreted by the left-wing Socialists out there. Didn’t vote for Bush, McCain, Obama or Clinton. The only Republican I have voted for is my U.S. representative in the past 10 years. You aren’t ready to have an honest discussion with someone that doesn’t fit your cookie-cutter approach to government.

And I suppose calling Republicans “fascists” is your way of not alienating people and being all inclusive, right?

And as long as BOTH parties cook the books with Social Security funds, it’s OK? We can just write off that bad old deficit under Clinton, because he had LESS debt to cover with SS funds than other Presidents? What kind of planet do you come from?

And I’m sorry, but Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are against everything I hold dear; the Constitution, freedom, individual rights and personal responsibility. They are boogeymen, and they have no place in government as long as they take the oath of office they swore, and turn around and violate it with every act they vote for.

And the housing and banking meltdown was caused by over 30 years of mismanagement of both sectors due to Democrat policies begun under Jimmy Carter, expanded under Bill Clinton and pushed under the carpet by Barney Frank, Maxine Waters and Chris Dodd. Listen to all of them praise Franklin Raines and Fannie and Freddie, while Republicans like Chris Shays warned them of impending disaster. And this was just 4 years ago, Matters.

You libs are as out of touch with personal responsibility as anyone I have ever met. G is all for enveloping everyone in big government’s bosom, reading them sweet bedtime stories at night to drive away their fears, while that same government removes all incentives for people to want to create jobs, make money and pay the taxes that allow you and your friends to live off of us and our grandchildren with massive deficits.

You have no solution for Social Security, which will be in deficit spending in less than 6 years. Hope & Change says he’s going to cut the deficit to $500 BILLION or so in the next 4 years. Big deal! That just cuts the rate of spending INCREASES. When are these jackalopes in Congress and the White House going to realize that when you have less money coming in, YOU SPEND LESS!

You want solutions, Matters? How about these?

1. Pass the FairTax. Within 2 years, you’ll be beating away corporations who want to move here and create jobs with a stick. Employment will skyrocket.
2. Repeal the Community Reinvestment Act. It is the prime reason why irresponsible people have home loans they cannot afford today.
3. Push Iraq to complete the last three benchmarks for success, and bring our troops home.
4. Ban all earmarks and pork for all bills for the next 4 years minimum.
5. Drill for new sources of domestic oil.
6. Make every bill that goes through Congress be a single issue bill. No adding agricultural issues into a defense spending bill. Too much crap gets hidden and dumped by this practice.
7. Pass a pay plan for Congress that increases their pay as they decrease the deficit. If they increase the deficit, they lose money.
8. Institute term limits for Congress. It isn’t even remotely Constitutional, but the way both parties have gamed the election system, it needs to be done.
9. Remove all foreign aid until our deficit is reduced by 75%. Americans will have to take care of America first.
10. Get out of the United Nations. They do nothing for us, and the bill to keep them here is too high. Plus, we should be able to get some pretty good rents for that riverfront property.
11. End the Department of Education. No Child Left behind is an abysmal failure, and isn’t even adequately funded, which causes each state to pony up more money it doesn’t have.

Let the howling begin.