Quote:Sometimes I come on here just to read this kind of stuff. It's cute - so Back to the Futureish.

 

Keep pushing that 1880s rhetoric, it'll get you real far. Were you there when Moses brought forth the tablets telling us what The State can and can't do? I'd prefer the people's representatives to decide rather than the political absolutists, but that's just me.

 

But the image of a mad bomber-type writing furiously on a legal pad, page after page, is very cool and a major part of the attraction of the Politics threads.

And what's so 1880's about the notion that the government should be taxing what you spend, not what you earn? I think it's not only a fair system, but one that would ultimately go a long way towards improving the overall financial health of Americans. It would teach us to control our spending more in ways that we don't now, leaving more money in American pockets. The difference could be made up in corporate taxation.

 

The biggest argument that I see thrown around is that it's disproportionately unfair to the working class, and to that I say that a provision should be built in allowing some of the tax to be refunded each year based upon income and spending. That bridges the percentage gap between the person making $40k per year and spending $35k of it, and the person making $1M per year and spending $600k of it. If the percentages even out in the end, it's fair to everyone.

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