Saturday, July 01, 2006

Welcome to class Earth Muffin



Without hesitation I admit that I love blogging and ranting against the growth of government. So it always encouraging to see Comments posted responding to my bloc thoughts such as this question to me posted by , "Earth Muffin" (EM), regarding my posting on Warren buffet, "Market Decision by the Market Master":

Earth Muffin said...

Dearest Space Beagle:
If you can admit to the need for some gov't, regardless of its size, how, in your tax free world, would this gov't be paid for?
9:11 AM


Since EM's (no doubt an "organic" muffin) question contains three themes let me dissect and respond to them below:

  1. "Some government" -- I have never called for "zero government" like some anarch0-capitalists I know since I am essentially a "law and order libertarian/classical liberal" with one thought driving my world view -- GOVERNMENT SHOULD DO VERY FEW THINGS AND IT SHOULD DO THOSE THINGS VERY WELL SUCH AS NATIONAL DEFENSE
  2. "Tax free world" -- no where on my blog nor in conversations have I called for a tax free world. Hell, I am open minded about rising tax revenue -- why don't we raise taxes on public employees' and Congress' retirement pensions if government "needs" more revenue??? :)
  3. "How to pay for it" -- Please note Item #1 above first because if we can't agree on an initial premise then you will have no understanding of my worldview. In general I am a great believer in user fees such as the creation of toll roads -- if you drive on a highway then buy a token/electronic pass card to pay for the cost to maintain the highway. Sure, you say, "but how can we add user fees to a nuclear missile or a Stealth bomber?" to which I would advocate a "war tax" -- here the US Congress would have to impose a tax to pay for national defense via a broad-based tax such as a national sales tax or an income tax. Why would this be a good idea? Such a "war tax" would completely empower taxpayers because it would be TRANSPARENT since we would know exactly what the tax amount is and what the tax would be used for -- can you say this is true of our current tax code?? NO, you can not. Stating the obvious now -- we might even have less war if we had such taxes assuming taxpayers refuse to support such taxation and/or vote Members of Congress out of office.

So my dear Earth Muffin please give me a world in which -- private property is respected, government does very little and for very little cost, free trade exists for all goods and services, and nearly 50% of our income (includes -- income tax, payroll tax, social security, Medicare, capital gain tax, property tax......................) is NOT subject to the tax slavery we live in today.

Please visit my friends here if you need more education on these issues:

http://www.cato.org

and

http://www.reason.org

I trust when you run for public office you will use my advice to guide your decisions :)

Class dismissed,

Todd

2 comments:

Jeff Deitering said...

There has to be taxes - how else would one pay the people who collect taxes?

Anonymous said...

Dearest Space Beagle:

Thank you ever so much for the lesson....I'll cherish each word always.


Earth Muffin