The insanity of progressive taxation
Exclusive: Joseph Farah marks infamous day by demonstrating irrationality of system

Posted: April 15, 2008
1:00 am Eastern



By Joseph Farah


It's April 15, so everyone is thinking about taxes.

I don't know why we think about them one day a year. Americans should be thinking about them every day – and fighting them.

There are so many frustrating and idiotic reasons to hate the income tax, but let me focus on just one today.

Imagine you want to buy a new car. You find the make and model you like. You're pretty certain about the color and the options. You take your choice for a test drive.

Then you get down to haggling over the price.

"Now what about the price?" you ask the salesman.

"Depends," he says. "How much money do you earn?"

"Why is that any of your business?" you respond.

"Because," he says, "the price of the car depends on your salary."

"Why?" you ask incredulously.

"Oh, yeah," he explains. "If you make $100,000 or more, you pay 50 percent more than someone who only earns, say, $50,000. We're now selling cars the progressive way. We use a graduated cost index – or GCI – to figure out what our customers pay."

I'm sure if this happened to you, you'd be pretty steamed. Imagine if the cost of goods was determined by a sliding scale based on what we earned. It would be outrageous, unthinkable, un-American.

Yet, why is it that we as Americans sit idly by while the federal government uses just such an unfair system of sliding scales to determine what our individual tax burdens are?

Isn't that just what the so-called "progressive" tax system is all about? Isn't that what the graduated income tax is?

In fact, the government's scam is even worse than my hypothetical. We each pay to the federal government according to what we earn. But we don't even necessarily get anything when we pay more. In fact, generally speaking, those who pay nothing or less get more under the Infernal Revenue Disservice plan.

Think about it. My hypothetical example is not so imaginative at all. Have you ever gone to the grocery store and watched the person in line ahead of you present food stamps as payment? In effect, his groceries are cheaper than yours because he earns less. You get to pay for your groceries and his – and you don't have any choice about it, not even about whether he buys groceries that are healthy for him and his family.

Until we dismantle – once and for all – the criminal tax code, more of this fraud and thievery will find its way into American life.

Why do we accept such a system as rational?

Why do we accept this as just?

Why do we accept this as legal?

Why do we accept this as moral?

Why do we accept this as inevitable?

Doesn't such a system clearly diminish our hard work? Doesn't it provide disincentives to make more money, to put capital at risk and provide jobs for others? How is any of that beneficial to society?

In other words, we accept irrational actions from the supposedly accountable government that we would never accept from private industry.

In fact, I'm sure there are laws against charging customers different prices for the same product. Yet, the government believes it has the right and the duty to charge us different amounts for goods and services we may or may not want, and to use force if necessary to extract those funds from us.

Come on! This is not the Soviet Union. It's the United States of America.
It's time for a change. It's time to de-Sovietize America!

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Liberals are people that will believe anything twice.

what do you propose the ubiquitous rate should be?

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"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." Ghandi........
"We must learn to live together as brothers, or perish together as fools." MLK

I could accept it as tithing. 10% sales tax straight across the board.

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Zero. Eliminate the Marxist progressive income tax in it's entirety ... and replace it with nothing.

Vi

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Liberals are people that will believe anything twice.

While I don't believe government should be large, I believe it is necessary. As such, it does require at least some funding in order to operate well. I am willing to donate some monies, in the tax deductible form known as "taxes", in order to ensure its smooth operation.

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OK, so let's settle on a reasonable federal sales tax just like we have on gasoline. You put the pump nozzle into your filler tube and pump the gas. The tax is computed right along with your gasoline consumption. No complicated forms to fill out, no audits, no property confiscations, no levies on your bank account ... no April 15th!

Sound fair?

Vi

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Liberals are people that will believe anything twice.

Yeah, and kinda simple, too. Would we require an agency like the IRS? I'd rather like to abolish the IRS, m'self.

Do we limit what products are taxed, such as certain necessary consumables?

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I'm all for the Fair Tax, go Huckabee!!

Wait..huckabee is..huckagone

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Am I supposed to have some sort of disclaimer here?

Democrats tax and spend..............Republicans borrow and spend

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Huckabee? Fair Taxes? Unlikely
YouTube - Huckabee Begs For New Taxes