Topic: Herman Cain's 999 Plan

[warpmine]

A reduced rate (but not zero, perhaps only 7% for two years and then 8%, wouldn't bother me to much if certain conditions are met within the "zone". Has to be spelled out and the perk ended within a four year span.
Government, not the people would have to qualify the zone by a reduction in their spending budgets. This simple condition would reduce the burden on the businesses that would relocate to the zone. As it stands, they'd merely get a revenue boost that accompanies a boost in business and spend everylast penny making it just another stream to be tapped. We've seen it before and it will happen again and again if we cannot get local govts. to restrain themselves. The DemoRats will just use the stream in the exact same manner as before to get elected and give themselves bennys. The circle must stop.

[Delnorin]

A reduced rate (but not zero, perhaps only 7% for two years and then 8%, wouldn't bother me to much if certain conditions are met within the "zone". Has to be spelled out and the perk ended within a four year span.
Government, not the people would have to qualify the zone by a reduction in their spending budgets. This simple condition would reduce the burden on the businesses that would relocate to the zone. As it stands, they'd merely get a revenue boost that accompanies a boost in business and spend everylast penny making it just another stream to be tapped. We've seen it before and it will happen again and again if we cannot get local govts. to restrain themselves. The DemoRats will just use the stream in the exact same manner as before to get elected and give themselves bennys. The circle must stop.

I think I figured out one of the reasons why "Empowerment Zones" gave me the creeps.

Ever watch those apocoloyptic movies?

You manage to make it through the epidemic?  Phew.. one in 50,000 lived through it.  But everyone died that was in 'the zone'.

All those catostrophic and epic disease and death movies have 'the zone'.

Even the dictator futuristic socialist movies have 'the zone'.

I sure hope I don't end up living in Zone-666.

[Delnorin]

Another things just occurred to me (As either utterly stupid things do.. or the rare moments of insightful genious.  Which this one is I dont' know).

You know the way jerimandering is right (I'm positive I spelled that wrong).  Drawing of the district lines zig zag this way and that so that you always remain in power.  No matter what a dirt bag politician you are there is ZERO chance you will ever not win the next election (I.E. Harry Reid).

I am making an official prediction:  These Empowerment Zones will become precisely the same thing.  I will further predict that the jerimandered election zones will -mysteriously- follow the same borders as the Empowerment Zones.

The inner cities that breed like rats and live off the government.. but they have 8+ kids each and outnumber family sizes that live outside the empowerment zones... will have more votes.  They will continue to vote for everyone outside their zone to pay more taxes for their lifestyles (which will continue to improve).

We have reached and passed the point in which the dead-weight of the country (those not paying taxes) have enough numbers to control the other 49.99% of the country just by voting to fill their pockets at the expense of everyone else.

Move to the Empowerment zones NOW!  Buy houses and apartment buildings on credit.. whatever you need to do in order to become the slum-lord of the zones.  It's the only way to survive... to suck off the parasites that will keep gorging their stomachs on your hard work.

[AmericanPatriot]

Like all things government, empowerment zones will never go away and will be a source of subsidy for eternity

BTW, it's spelled gerrymandering 

[Pandora]

Not being one of "the poor", perhaps I have a biased point of view (Noooooo!  say is isn't so!), but, why does it seem everything is done to either accommodate "the poor" or punish "the rich" instead of for the benefit of the majority?  Mark Levin hit on this the other day and it resonated strongly.  Almost 50% pay no Federal income tax, which is ridiculous; we're expected to believe almost half the country is nearly destitute enough to require "assistance" and any move to dispel the notion that everyone ought to pay something engenders calls of "regressive taxation".

What is regressive about everyone having some skin in the game.

[rickl]

I'd love to see a flat tax, but I'm dismayed by Cain's exemptions for the "poor".  That just takes us back to square one, and the existing tax code.

I want to like him, but he's making it very difficult.

I'll probably support him in the primary, but I'm not at all enthusiastic about it.

[charlesoakwood]

Yes, everyone should pay and everyone, even if they pay a dollar, should suffer the rigors of the byzantine tax forms and when they bitch or whine simply explain that everybody does it.  "What's the matter with you?"

Whatever the tax if the IRS is not constrained, reconstructed, or better, eliminated it will end up an added
tax to the mess we have now.  And a missed point: The tax code did not create the mess we are in and fixing
it is not going to get us out.

[BMG]

@Charles:

I agree with most of your post and I guess my disagreement is a pretty minor thing really. I think that our current tax code did at least help to get us into this mess. Things like having the sky-high corporate tax we have for example, drives business off-shore and certainly doesn't help our situation and fixing that could go quite a long way toward improving our economic situation. I understand the gist of what you are saying though and you are right in that, just fixing the tax code isn't going to solve our fiscal troubles. But if we did fix it and did some other things (entitlement reform, etc), all of it put together would fix our fiscal situation.

[charlesoakwood]

Good and good except there is no product and America is built on product. The product may be intellectual,
or more naturally American, a good.  In order for America to deliver a product that is profitable for the
producer and enriching to the employee we must get rid of the regulators.  We have 300 years of fuel under
our soil -- no touching says the EPA.  We have hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland held hostage by
either the EPA or the Endangered Species Act  (who ever they are).  Unless it is possible to survive and reinvent ourselves at the same time we must have product.  We are a producer nation.

[Janny]

Not being one of "the poor", perhaps I have a biased point of view (Noooooo!  say is isn't so!), but, why does it seem everything is done to either accommodate "the poor" or punish "the rich" instead of for the benefit of the majority?  Mark Levin hit on this the other day and it resonated strongly.  Almost 50% pay no Federal income tax, which is ridiculous; we're expected to believe almost half the country is nearly destitute enough to require "assistance" and any move to dispel the notion that everyone ought to pay something engenders calls of "regressive taxation".

What is regressive about everyone having some skin in the game.

That's exactly it, Pan. The tax system, along with the social programs, represent classic redistribution of wealth. That is how we got to where we are now, where half the people pay no taxes at all, and the rest pay for their bennies. That is the way the liberals have deliberately maneuvered it, to their advantage. It will take some very serious "tough love" to get those people to better themselves and off those entitlement programs and get the economy growing again.. Yet so many just seem to think our government can afford to just keep spending and spending, if it only seizes more wealth from the rich...and you and me.

 

Then there is the fact that all these people who have no skin in the game get to vote.

  

[John Florida]

  The people with skin in the game are those that pay taxes and those that set the game up so that there are always people that don't pay so that they have a voter base that has been schooled in how to stay in the government dole.

 Any sense of fighting to get out of that trap has been schooled and beaten out of them mentally so that they honestly believe that that is their place in the world and it's never going to change. Their comfort zone has been cemented into their heads so deeply that they fear even thinking of getting out.

 They can't see themselves doing better than they are ever.

[LadyVirginia]

Ever read the actual Tax Code?  It's part of the United States Code.

The United States Code is the codification by subject matter of the general and permanent laws of the United States. It is divided by broad subjects into 50 titles and published by the Office of the Law Revision Counsel of the U.S. House of Representatives. Since 1926, the United States Code has been published every six years. In between editions, annual cumulative supplements are published in order to present the most current information.

link

The complete Internal Revenue Code is more than 24 megabytes in length, and contains more than 3.4 million words; printed 60 lines to the page, it would fill more than 7500 letter-size pages.

link

It's really a set of definitions with what seems like endless exceptions.

Define income.  Seems easy. Until someone asks "Is this income?"
Define who must pay and who is exempt. 
Being able to navigate around dependent clauses and parentheticals and understanding the word except is a huge help in researching the beast.


I'm not sure modifying it will be much help.  Personally, I'd like to scrape the whole thing and just start over by defining how much money we need to raise every year to pay for those things we Constitutionally must fund. But that ain't happening.  But even if we start over the same problem will occur.  Define income.

[charlesoakwood]

Yes, junk the whole thing and give me a sales tax. 
If I don't want to pay tax I don't buy it. ::beatingheart::

[Pandora]

Ever read the actual Tax Code?  It's part of the United States Code.

The United States Code is the codification by subject matter of the general and permanent laws of the United States. It is divided by broad subjects into 50 titles and published by the Office of the Law Revision Counsel of the U.S. House of Representatives. Since 1926, the United States Code has been published every six years. In between editions, annual cumulative supplements are published in order to present the most current information.

link

The complete Internal Revenue Code is more than 24 megabytes in length, and contains more than 3.4 million words; printed 60 lines to the page, it would fill more than 7500 letter-size pages.

link

It's really a set of definitions with what seems like endless exceptions.

Define income.  Seems easy. Until someone asks "Is this income?"
Define who must pay and who is exempt. 
Being able to navigate around dependent clauses and parentheticals and understanding the word except is a huge help in researching the beast.


I'm not sure modifying it will be much help.  Personally, I'd like to scrape the whole thing and just start over by defining how much money we need to raise every year to pay for those things we Constitutionally must fund. But that ain't happening.  But even if we start over the same problem will occur.  Define income.

Arrrrggghhhhhh.  Hell is other people.  Like lawyers.

I'm leaning toward a flat tax at this point.  Would this by necessity retain the IRS?  Arrrggggghhhhh.

[BMG]

I'm leaning toward a flat tax at this point.  Would this by necessity retain the IRS?  Arrrggggghhhhh.

Yes Pandora - a FLAT Tax would, by necessity, keep the IRS in place. There is only one tax scheme out there that REPLACES the IRS and that is the FAIR Tax.

[Janny]

I'm leaning toward a flat tax at this point.  Would this by necessity retain the IRS?  Arrrggggghhhhh.

Yes Pandora - a FLAT Tax would, by necessity, keep the IRS in place. There is only one tax scheme out there that REPLACES the IRS and that is the FAIR Tax.

Yes, but there still has to be a system for collecting those federal sales taxes. The burden would be on businesses and the states to collect them, no doubt. Then the fair tax also includes that provision for "prebates" which is outlined here.

So, even the fair tax would not eliminate an IRS-type entity, in order to accommodate "those in poverty" so they aren't "overly burdened."

The best thing to do, at this point, in my opinion, is to keep the IRS in place, for the time being, but greatly simplify the tax code, with a flat tax.

BUT.....if tax reform is not accompanied by some sort of reining in of federal spending, we might as well not bother, because it's just going to be more of the same redistribution with another tax system funding it.

[BMG]

So, even the fair tax would not eliminate an IRS-type entity, in order to accommodate "those in poverty" so they aren't "overly burdened."

Actually Janny that assessment is flawed I think. The IRS does not distribute Social Security checks for example...the FAIR Tax prebate would be handled in that same fashion. The IRS is not needed at all under the FAIR Tax...nor is an IRS-like entity. The entity in question would be responsible for tax prebate distribution and not tax collecting - that is a huge distinction and is what makes the difference between the IRS and the entity that would be distributing the prebate.

The best thing to do, at this point, in my opinion, is to keep the IRS in place, for the time being, but greatly simplify the tax code, with a flat tax.

You and I will just have to agree to disagree on this point methinks.    I do agree that the system you've just outlined would in fact be better than what we have - but not better than the FAIR Tax. The reason I say that is because the FAIR Tax eliminates the IRS and the IRS is how the politicians are able to get away with voter manipulation through our tax code as they have been for all these years (meaning that if we get rid of the IRS altogether that strips power away from the politicians and gives it to the voters - if we leave the IRS intact we have accomplished nothing really but delayed the inevitable). The IRS necessarily has to go away in order to fix that.

BUT.....if tax reform is not accompanied by some sort of reining in of federal spending, we might as well not bother, because it's just going to be more of the same redistribution with another tax system funding it.

Spot on analysis right there Janny. 

[Predator Don]

"The best thing to do, at this point, in my opinion, is to keep the IRS in place, for the time being, but greatly simplify the tax code, with a flat tax."


 Not to pick at you......LOL.....So you are in favor of the current system....LOL


I find the conversation interesting to say the least. We hate the current tax system but will sleep with the beast if we can only make a small change or two, while maligning a plan which would greatly reduce the beasts power because we may keep an empowerment zone.


Empowerment zones shrink if the economy is moving forward. They will expand under the current administration.

[Janny]

"The best thing to do, at this point, in my opinion, is to keep the IRS in place, for the time being, but greatly simplify the tax code, with a flat tax."


 Not to pick at you......LOL.....So you are in favor of the current system....LOL
 

Excuse me, but that's exactly what you are trying to do, is PICK AT ME.

The current system is not based on a flat tax. The flat tax would vastly change the current system, so your allegation that I am in favor of the current system is quite dishonest and absolutely ridiculous.

 

I find the conversation interesting to say the least. We hate the current tax system but will sleep with the beast if we can only make a small change or two, while maligning a plan which would greatly reduce the beasts power because we may keep an empowerment zone.

Again, you are putting words in my mouth and mischaracterizing what I've said. I'm maligning a plan that has no chance of passing through congress. The plan has no way to "reduce the beast's power" if it won't get enacted.

Nice try, though.

[Predator Don]

"The best thing to do, at this point, in my opinion, is to keep the IRS in place, for the time being, but greatly simplify the tax code, with a flat tax."


 Not to pick at you......LOL.....So you are in favor of the current system....LOL
 

Excuse me, but that's exactly what you are trying to do, is PICK AT ME.

The current system is not based on a flat tax. The flat tax would vastly change the current system, so your allegation that I am in favor of the current system is quite dishonest and absolutely ridiculous.

 

I find the conversation interesting to say the least. We hate the current tax system but will sleep with the beast if we can only make a small change or two, while maligning a plan which would greatly reduce the beasts power because we may keep an empowerment zone.

Again, you are putting words in my mouth and mischaracterizing what I've said. I'm maligning a plan that has no chance of passing through congress. The plan has no way to "reduce the beast's power" if it won't get enacted.

Nice try, though.

Excuse me...but you did state to keep the IRS in place. If you believe the current system, all 7500 pages, could implement a flat tax you are being dishonest with yourself.