Sunday, April 12, 2009

Reason 0 to Scrap the Tax Code

by Smitty

From Rob Roy, by Walter Scott:
Be it better, be it worse,
Be ruled by him that has the purse.

His Instapunditness points to Freedomworks.org's Top Ten Reasons To Scrap the Tax Code. Good points, all.
However, I'll argue that their ultimate point,
10. Laws Should Rest on Principles of Justice.
The tax code is modified every few years along no reasonable principle. The code is arbitrary and unpredictable, and is morphing from its stated purpose-- efficiently raising government revenue-- into an instrument that Congress uses to instill fear, punishment, and political control. The code should be scrapped and replaced with a more just system based on principles of fairness and equality before the law rather than on the whim of lobbyists and lawmakers.

...is really just rearranging the keffiyeh on Yasser Arafat if you don't uproot the problem at the source:
Amendment 16 - Status of Income Tax Clarified
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
February 3 of 2013 marks 100 year of the situation that the "chain of taxation command" has been short-circuited, and the States diminished in importance. In fairness, much good has come of the arrangement, particularly when national-level crises such as wars have arisen. At the same time, consider the overall erosion of federalism, such that the current administration feels empowered to run up the debt like a pack of crack-addled jackasses:

(noting again that this has been a decades-building, bi-partisan tradition).
If you haven't told me how you're restoring Congress to its original, Constitutional bounds on taxing individuals, you haven't told me much.
If you haven't told me how you're requiring the financial gazintas to match the gazoutas more reasonably, you haven't told me much.
If you haven't told me how you're restoring power to the States, so that the States can protect individuals from a thieving, incompetent Fed, you haven't told me much.
There really isn't much point in scrapping the tax code if you're leaving intact the fundamental cause of the problem.

3 comments:

  1. @Dandapani:
    Saw that when it hit my Google Reader. Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Bravo. And zulu, while you're at it. I can't wait to pollute Lake Michigan on Tax Day!

    ReplyDelete