So long IRS

[[AK]Squidly]

Story

It'll likely never happen, but it's fun to dream.

[[AK]Choozoo]

That was on my website hours ago

[[AK]The Beast]

I've long been intrigued by the ideas of a national flat tax or consumption tax. It simply seems like a fair method--you pay X percent of each paycheck (I believe Steve Forbes ran for president on the platform of 15% across the board), plan your budget accordingly. Of course, that's assuming that everyone can be responsible enough to plan their budget accordingly--there's an awful lot of people who are used to having Big Nanny Government wipe their noses and bandage their skinned knees when they stumble.

Former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura is a supporter of a national consumption tax--he lays it out quite nicely in his book I Ain't Got Time To Bleed.

Of course, as it's pointed out in one of the links in the article Squidly linked (thirdhand linkage?), you'll never completely get rid of the IRS. Someone will have to collect the taxes and ensure compliance. And it gets harder to exact a flat or consumption tax for businesses. A lot of taxes and tax breaks are meant to encourage or discourage social behavior. (I've long favored tax credits, rather than costly-to-implement regulations, for instance, as a way to get corporations to improve their environmental practices.) How do you figure a corporation's income for purposes of a flat tax? (Assuming, of course, that a flat tax does away with most deductions and tax shelters.) With a person, every dollar taken in is "income". With a corporation, a large portion of each dollar taken in is offset by money that was initially laid out to create that income. And how about a consumption tax for businesses? How do you implement that without discouraging R&D and other investment and expansion activities that benefit stockholders, employees, and the economy/society in general? The corporate tax system is much more of a Gordian knot than the personal income tax system.

Squidly said it best...it is fun to dream, but it'll probably never happen.

[Slaughter]

Should you really trust a person who uses the word Ain't? I mean, it isn't even a word.

[[AK]The Beast]

If it were Jesse himself who wrote the phrase, it might reflect poorly on his vocabulary, but the title of his book is actually a quote from his tough-as-nails-Special-Forces character in the movie Predator.

Not meaning to turn this thread into a love-Ventura-or-hate-him debate, but while I'm not sure I'd vote for him myself, at least you know where the man stands. He speaks his mind on his positions, and critics/opponents be damned. I admire that even if I do think some of his political beliefs are a bit out there.

[[AK]Gunny Highway]

Should you really trust a person who uses the word Ain't? I mean, it isn't even a word.

Well it is in the dictionary and has been since '96, so what determines whether something is a word or not? But then again they added DOH to the dictionary:
Main Entry: doh
Function: interjection
Definition: said when annoyed or disappointed; also spelled d'oh
Etymology: Popularized by the character Homer Simpson in the animated television series The Simpsons, performed by Dan Castellaneta; written in the scripts as "annoyed grunt"