Fuel costs

[Barn Owl]

Does anyone know about the "Fair Tax"?

[Lin]

John,
     I think you mean Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.  Caesar Chavez was the founder of the farm workers union in California.  Water in private hands can be a problem.  In a deal with the World Bank, Bolivia had to turn over all water rights in one of there states to Bechtel.  It became illegal to get water from anyone else and was even a crime to gather rainwater.  That is one of the amazing abuses of corporate power, allowed by those in power, that has led to Bolivia's current leftist government.

[Lee Bradley]

The world price of crude is not driving the US fuel prices or the oil company profits would not be where they are.

We have the fuel prices we have because we are willing to pay that price. But why that price? Because there has not been a new refinery built in the US in decades and the refineries we have are operating at capacity 24 7. We have all the supply of fuel we are going to have until the government and action group allow more to be built. So what you say. Well our population keeps growing and they all want cars and the good live. But no more fuel is available so demand has to be driven down. What tool does big oil have to drive down demand; prices. They have to keep raising prices because we get used to the higher prices and go back to using fuel like its a good deal. The hearings in congress lasted three days because they know the real story and the hearings was a PR stunt. Also driving demand down fits the policy of many of those politicians. That is one of the reasons there has been no new refineries. The oil company execs are no happier than most of you over their record profits; they know those profits put a target on their backs and they are called every name in the book because they are doing what is required to keep fuel at the station when you want it. If they didn't drive down demand with high prices, the demand would outstrip supply in no time and the tanks at the stations would be empty. You think people are complaining about high prices; let the tanks go empty and they would be demanding that the government nationalize the oil companies for the public good. There is no problem that can't be made worse by government intervention.

I know most of the board members wouldn't post on how to rebuilt a Detroit or wire a bus without studying the subject or reading a book. If you are going to discuss economics, please buy or borrow from your library a copy of Thomas Sowell's 'Basic Economics' and read it cover to cover. It is a text book but very readable and Mr. Sowell covers everything from centrally planned economies to wide open capitalistic economies.

[buddydawg]

Does anyone know about the "Fair Tax"?

I am a huge proponent of the fair tax.  It will place the power back in the hands of the people and anytime that happens it is a good thing.

[NJT5047]

John,
     Water in private hands can be a problem.  In a deal with the World Bank, Bolivia had to turn over all water rights in one of there states to Bechtel.  It became illegal to get water from anyone else and was even a crime to gather rainwater.  That is one of the amazing abuses of corporate power, allowed by those in power, that has led to Bolivia's current leftist government.

As an aside, check the laws regarding gathering snow in areas of Colorado.  Same as you say.  Don't get caught gathering snow to water indoor plants.  Now I have no idea how they police this, but this is what I read. 
Regarding a 'fair tax'...the middle class will never have a 'fair tax.'  Before jumping on that wagon, one should study what you are actually paying now.  The only 'tax' that would be offset is the federal income tax.  We'll still be paying for SS, and all the other sundry taxes leveied on our pitiable    existance.  Now I'm paying a "Video Service Tax" of $5 bucks a month on a $60 DirecTV statement to North Carolina.  They don't miss an opportunity! 
The numbers being kicked around are around 23% to 30% and no deductions.  While I really dislike the existing income tax scheme, not sure that I would be happy with a 'fair tax' scheme.   The underground economy is huge now...wait till everyone pays a flat rate....well, no, that won't happen.  Only the middle class and rich will pay.  And contrary to popular belief, the rich do pay.   Don't make no no-how to me...I'm going to retire and let 3 someones pay ME!  My tax liability is going to go way down.  If fuel prices go much higher, a lot of other peoples tax liabilities are going to be reduced.   There will be a major jobs contraction.  No problemo...that will take care of a ton of illegals..!    Cool.  They don't want to get sideways with crowds of hungry gringos.   Reckon how much fuel would be saved by removing 20 million drivers of junk vehicles?   
Health care issues have no resolution.  Most of us have excellent health care.  Best in the world.  And the most expensive.  We can give up the 'excellence' for universal healthcare, or we can slog along as it is.   It is an interesting problem.   The Canadian model would not do as well if the US healthcare services were not so readily available. 
Just reading the latest on Hugo Chavez...the guy never quits!   I'd bet the US could remove the 'profit' from all the narco states by legalizing hard drugs and allow the farming for such in the US.  Tax the hel out of it.  Treat it like alcohol.    Drug trafficking is the mainstay of the leftist govs in South America and the Middle East.  That's Afghanistan's cash crop. 
How's that for flight of ideas?     JR   
   

[buddydawg]

You really need to read up on the Fair Tax before you form an opinion.  The follow in an excerpt from fairtax.org

The FairTax Act (HR 25, S 1025) is nonpartisan legislation. It abolishes all federal personal and corporate income taxes, gift, estate, capital gains, alternative minimum, Social Security, Medicare, and self-employment taxes and replaces them with one simple, visible, federal retail sales tax  administered primarily by existing state sales tax authorities.

The FairTax taxes us only on what we choose to spend on new goods or services, not on what we earn. The FairTax is a fair, efficient, transparent, and intelligent solution to the frustration and inequity of our current tax system.

There is a ton of information on their website it is worth your time to take a look.

[NJT5047]

There is no problem that can't be made worse by government intervention.

AMEN!!

There are days when I feel that I understand how the last days of Rome evolved. Watching the daily incompetence of our federales leaves me wondering how long we'll be around. 
We got an invasion of 20 million illegals and our congress is worrying about doping in baseball???  Gads.
JR

[NJT5047]

You really need to read up on the Fair Tax before you form an opinion.  The follow in an excerpt from fairtax.org

The FairTax Act (HR 25, S 1025) is nonpartisan legislation. It abolishes all federal personal and corporate income taxes, gift, estate, capital gains, alternative minimum, Social Security, Medicare, and self-employment taxes and replaces them with one simple, visible, federal retail sales tax  administered primarily by existing state sales tax authorities.

The FairTax taxes us only on what we choose to spend on new goods or services, not on what we earn. The FairTax is a fair, efficient, transparent, and intelligent solution to the frustration and inequity of our current tax system.

There is a ton of information on their website it is worth your time to take a look.

I'm familiar with the concept.  Boortz has been hawking this idea for a while.  We'll see.  I prefer Walter Williams take on this item.  He says that it'll start off at 23% and rapidly increase to about 40%.  All under the guise of 'revenue neutral' since they are replacing lost revenue. 
I'm gonna go google Thomas Sowell and see what he has to say about the fair tax. 
As it stands now, I am able to deduct diesel fuel as a business expense...the fair tax would have me losing my deduction and then paying another....cough..23% ...I'd have to walk!   
Cheers, JR

[buddydawg]

You will pay the sales tax on the fuel after the current fuel tax and all other imbedded taxes have been removed.  I encourage everyone to read the details of the plan before they go trashing it.  Most of the negatives i hear about the Fair Tax are due to misinformation. 

[NJT5047]

Last year, talk-show host Neal Boortz and Congressman John Linder co-authored "The FairTax Book: Saying Goodbye to the Income Tax and the IRS." It turned out to be a No. 1 New York Times Best Seller. In 2005, the Fair Tax bill was introduced in both the U.S. House of Representatives as H.R. 25 and the U.S. Senate as S.25. Rep. Linder plans to re-introduce the bill next year.

If enacted, the Fair Tax would eliminate: the federal individual income tax, alternative minimum tax, corporate and business taxes, capital gains tax, Social Security and Medicare taxes, and estate and gift taxes. These taxes would be replaced by a 23 percent sales tax on all goods and services sold at the retail level. The Fair Tax would be revenue-neutral in the sense that it would replace the revenue from current federal taxes; thus, it would change the way government is funded.

Our current tax code is an abomination, and we desperately need that change. The time Americans spend simply complying with our tax code comes to 5.8 billion hours of record-keeping, filing taxes, consulting, legal and accounting services. Breaking those hours down to a 40-hour work week, it translates into a workforce of 2.77 million people. That's more than the workforce of our auto, aircraft, computer and steel manufacturing industries combined.

The Fair Tax has much to recommend in its favor, such as being a more efficient form of taxation. It would go a long way toward protecting our privacy and preventing Congress from using the tax code to micromanage our lives. The Fair Tax is an excellent idea, but only under three conditions: first, the repeal of the Sixteenth Amendment that created the income tax; second, a provision fixing the tax at, say, 23 percent; and third, a constitutional amendment mandating that a tax increase requires a three-fourths vote of Congress. Notwithstanding any provisions within the Fair Tax, if the Sixteenth Amendment weren't repealed, down the road we'd find ourselves with a national sales tax and an income tax.

You say, "Williams, it sounds as if you don't trust Congress." I don't trust Congress any farther than I can toss an elephant. During the debate prior to ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment, congressmen said that only the rich would ever pay income taxes. In 1917, only one-half of one percent of income earners paid income taxes. Those earning $250,000 a year in today's dollars paid one percent, and those earning $6 million in today's dollars paid 7 percent. The lie that only the rich would ever pay income taxes was simply propaganda to dupe Americans into ratifying the Sixteenth Amendment.

Here's my prediction: The Fair Tax will never become law. The two most powerful congressional committees are the House Ways and Means and the Senate Finance committees. These committees write tax law, and as such they are able to confer tax privileges on some Americans at the expense of other Americans. The Fair Tax would reduce or eliminate this form of congressional privilege-granting power and, subsequently, campaign contributions from the beneficiaries would dwindle.

The method used to finance the federal government is very important, but I've always argued that government spending is the true measure of its impact on our lives. If there were a Fair Tax, what's to stop Congress from deficit spending or inflating the currency? Deficit spending and inflation are simply alternative forms, albeit less obvious, of taxation.

You say, "What's Williams' solution?" My solution is an amendment limiting federal spending to a fixed percentage, say, 10 percent of the gross domestic product. You say, "Why 10 percent?" If 10 percent is good enough for the Baptist Church, it certainly ought to be good enough for Congress.




Dr. Williams serves on the faculty of George Mason University as John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics and is the author of More Liberty Means Less Government: Our Founders Knew This Well.

Thanks to Dr. Walter Williams

[Lin]

I think the national sales tax is a better system than we have now.  Just think of all the money that would be gained from tapping the underground and illegal economies that are fax-free at present.  One thing that I don't like is that people, who have already paid income tax on their savings, will be taxed again on it when they start spending it during retirement.  There seems that there should be some way to avoid that.  By the way, there is a good case to be made that the 16 amendment was never actually completely ratified, but the government implemented it anyway.  I think that Ron Paul actually acknowledges that the IRS does not really have the legal authority to collect taxes; they merely have the physical power to do so.

[Barn Owl]

The Air Bus contract will have a clause in it that the aircraft will be domestic manufactured

Wrong! They will only be assembled in America, they will be manufactured in Europe!

[JohnEd]

Lin,

Of course you are right....I did mean "HUGO" Chavez.  I shouldn't write on this board when i am tired.  Really not fit to do so.  So thats writing and sex when I am really tired.  I keep forgetting.

Your info about Bolivia is heart breaking.  It isn't any wonder that our cherished, and rightly so, economic system of free enterprise is so distrusted and held in such low contempt.  We have branded the Bolivian government as LEFTIST.  I think it would be more properly described as being fundamentally conservative and Patriotic with a full focus on the well fare of its people.  The new government seems to be of the people, by the people and for the people.  Corp abuses fired up the populace to vote out the previously corrupt and corp dominated government.  As a nation we seem to prefer to deal with dictators.  Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

 When Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected he was vilified in the press by the most powerful newspaper man in the country.  That would be William Randolf Hearst....the Rupert Murdock of his day.  As payback for his having used his news papers, then thought to be a sacred part of the American fabric, in what was considered a disreputable way, FDR struck back the only way he could.  FDR pushed Congress to enact an income tax to help with the Gummints being broke and their being a depression in process.  Congress would only agree in principle and was loath to tax anybody/the rich.  FDR scaled back his demands and settled for a tax only on income that exceeded $100K.  The only person/rich guy in the nation that actually paid himself a high salary was WRH and his salary was exactally $100K so the first year it was enacted there was only one person paying.  I thought it was an interesting tale, and NO, it didn't come out of U. history 101.

I thought Flat Tax was dead.  Sorry to see that is still being kicked around.  I never could see why anyone with a working knowledge of ARITHMATIC could buy into this fairy tale.  Without any thought or serious consideration I was insulted when I first heard that it was seriously being considered by anyone.  Insulted!  It isn't rocket science.  You only have to look at who is proposing this farce.  CORPORATIONS would no longer pay ANY TAX.  Gee, why would they pay good money to deceive the many on this matter.  There would be no ESTATE TAX.  The way the Estate tax was written before this current crop of revisions, Bill gates, with a fortune of $40 Billion to leave his only daughter, would have seen $20 Billion be consumed by estate taxes.  Now she is a sweet girl, i am sure, but to those that MUCH IS GIVEN,  much is expected.  They enacted the estate tax because the rich accumulate so much money that it is a power unto itself and their estate perpetuates itself without their raising a finger or contributing to society.  These are ROYALTY by another name as they have hereditary POWER/wealth.  To get that money back into play, the case that is made for reducing taxes, the Congress enacted the estate tax.  At that it only kicks in if the estate is worth more than $3Million.  The purpose was to relieve the tax on the middle class and HELP the economy.  The ultra rich despise that tax and for that reason alone WE, the middle class, should be screaming that it be kept.  Then there is capitol gains.  Reagan had the entire country believing that the Gummint actually TOOK 75% of the capitol gains as tax.  It was actually a 25% of your Capitol income was tax free.  He increased that to 75% is tax free.  That is income that you did not WORK for.....your money made it for you...or you holdings.  Most of the Capitol gain income is distributed among the rich so why is the middle class screaming that they get a completely FREE RIDE?  We should be screaming that capitol gains on less than some amt per year be taxed at a lower rate instead of relieving the ultrarich.

When you look at the Flat tax be assured that to keep Gummint functioning at its current level the flat tax needs to be 40% of income.  For this national sales tax to work it would have to create the same money and would represent as stupid a rate to let all the other tax payers completely off of the hook.  Our national budget is spent primarily on entitlements.  Read that as Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security.  They have been untouchable in the past.  All will have to be drasticall cut to reduce the sales tax to a rate that you can stomach.  We spend nearly everything we make to subsist in the middle class.  The more money you make the more discretionary income you have.  Read that as yachts and private aircraft and speculative investment.  How can anyone in the middle class climb on that band wagon?  We struggle to keep our buses and buy fuel...at least in comparison to those really rich Dudes that say "if you have to ask about its milage than you can't afford it".

Check this theory:  The higher the income tax rate has risen the better it has been for the economy as a whole.  When their taxes go up the rich get down to business and work a 6 hour day instead of putting in a grueling 3 hour shift with breaks.  They are the only ones that can adjust their income by working harder.  And they deserve to profit in accordancewith their effort.  You work twice as hard and your income remains the same.  Now try it like:  drill twice as many wells, or build two more restaraunts, or increase your truck fleet by 30%.  Get it?

I need to be able to afford to run and drive my bus.  That would be FAIR.  In the first year of the Regan revolution, mentioned only as a time frame reference, corps paid 60% or 40% of all the taxes in our nation. Today the rate is 15% or at least less than half.  Somebody had to make up the difference and you know who that is.  Now we can fix that by letting the absolutely most fortunate among us completely off the hook to help in any way.  THIS IS A POST ABOUT THE COST OF FUEL and how I can afford more of it.  I hope we are connecting dots.


Here it is.  The explanation you have all been waiting for.  It comes from Uncle Joseph Stalin.  He said  "the very first thing that a man does when he is given freedom/rights is to barter them away in order to deprive some other group of the same rights."  Now Vladimir Illyavich LENIN is also known for predicting the failure of democracy with "when the middle class finally learns that it can vote itself out of the responsibility of paying taxes to support its government it will simply disappear".  It gets replaced with an Oligarchy or Tyrant and then the belts tighten.

Those economists are the ones that proved mathematically that you must have a progressive income tax to redistribute wealth or there will be no wealth in circulation that will inspire men to succeed and achieve.  Russians were the worst motivated people on earth, except slaves, because they were limited and without hope.  It is to perpetuate the economic model of capitalism that we tax the rich.  It keeps the country running and it really doesn't cost you a dime, comparatively speaking.  Your Daddy paid 30% tax and look how well he lived.  If I cut your income tax to 15% would you be living better than your Daddy?  Remember, Mom stayed at home.  Who loaded you with this stuff about taxes being the root of your problem....or those welfare moms....or the Mexicans....or those cursed college professors.  Which dictator was it that killed off all of the college professors?  Answer.....all of them!

See it to late for me to be up and armed with a computer to embarrass my self with.  Lin....help!

John

[paulcjhastings]

It's interesting that you choose people that kill others that opposed them as support quotes for your position

Fewer taxes on everyone, helps everyone. You are trying to convince everyone that we should receive the benefits of someone elses labor, that's really what wealth redistribution is about isn't it?

You also state "I need to be able to afford to run and drive my bus.  That would be FAIR."

How is driving and owning a bus a right? As a group I think all of us have made financial concessions to "run and drive our busses"

The current economic problems we are facing relate directly to spending. The ferderal, state, and local govt. have an insatiable desire for more money and spend more than they can collect in revenue. So do most people, look around we have smaller families and yet larger houses, I rarely see a car ten years old or older, etc...

Bottom line if you want to be able to pay for the future, start saving and planning now.

[Lin]

Just to pick up that comment about bigger houses.  My wife talked about needing a bigger kitchen.  I told her that I believed that kitchen growth and waistline growth may be related since, I think, that if you plotted kitchen size in America and obesity in America on a graph, the curves would run pretty close.  Some of us could even do a self survey on this.  How does the growth of your kitchen and waist compare?  Actually, I have since seen curves done on house size and waist size and they were the same.