squandertime
10-02-2007, 11:22 AM
trying to somehow explain quickly yet informatively how it is possible to eliminate the irs. beaumont meetup has a 10 day booth at the big beaumont ymbl fair/rodeo! and i am trying to make this flyer fly right........
here is what i have so far,
the front has a pic of ron paul on top and below his letter
on the backside has my write up discussing the idea further
think it will fly?? :confused:
================
ron paul pic
+++++++++++++++++++
ELIMINATE THE IRS
Cough Up - by Ron Paul weekly - April 10, 2006
April 15th, our national tax day, comes this year just as Congress prepares to pass the 2007 federal budget. If you think paying taxes was painful this year, I’ve got some bad news: the new budget is a grotesque illustration of everything wrong with the federal government. At $2.7 trillion, it’s the largest budget in U.S. history by a long shot. Like it or not, the pressure to raise your taxes will be enormous in coming years no matter who controls Congress. The amount of money government spends, borrows, and prints simply cannot be sustained.
For most people, their income tax return represents their most meaningful interaction with the federal government. It requires them to confess their actions over the past year to the IRS in excruciating detail. It's an annual ritual guaranteed to elicit strong feelings of disgust. Thanks to the deception of income tax withholding, however, some people actually look forward to tax time and a much-anticipated refund. Imagine how quickly Americans would demand lower taxes and spending if they had to write the federal government a check each month.
Most people understandably want a simpler income tax system, but it’s useless to discuss tax reform without spending reform. Who wants a 40% flat tax? Who wants a national sales tax if it adds 50% to the retail price of everything we buy? In other words, why change the tax structure if spending stays the same? Once we accept that Congress needs $2.7 trillion from us, the only question is how it will be collected. The current answer is the labyrinthine tax code, which pits taxpayers against each other in a political scramble to make sure the other guy pays. The truth is that Congress does not need $2.7 trillion, or anything close to it, to fund the proper constitutional functions of the federal government.
The only tax reform needed is to lower or abolish existing taxes. When reform proposals seem complicated, the reason is simple: they obscure their true nature as schemes to shift the tax burden around. It’s not who pays or how we pay; it’s how much we pay.
The real enemy of tax reform is the spending culture in Washington. Let me repeat: we will never have tax reform in this country until Congress changes its spending habits. The reform rhetoric, regardless of which party it comes from, never changes the reality that federal spending grows every year. Congress spent $2.4 trillion in the last Bush budget; the new budget proposes to spend $2.7 trillion. The same unconstitutional agencies are funded, the same unwise programs are perpetuated, but at higher levels than last year. The previous budget serves merely as a baseline; the only question in any given year is how much spending will increase. Once created, no spending program is ever eliminated. The cycle goes on and on, with different administrations and different people in Congress.
But could America exist without an income tax? The idea seems radical, yet in truth America did just fine without a federal income tax for the first 126 years of her history. Prior to 1913, the government operated with revenues raised through tariffs, excise taxes, and property taxes, without ever touching a worker's paycheck. Even today, individual income taxes account for only approximately one-third of federal revenue. Eliminating one-third of the proposed 2007 budget would still leave federal spending at roughly $1.8 trillion-- a sum greater than the budget just 6 years ago in 2000! Does anyone seriously believe we could not find ways to cut spending back to 2000 levels? Perhaps the idea of an America without an income tax is not so radical after all. It’s something to think about this week as we approach April 15th.
+++++++++++++++++++
Press release- Thursday, October 23, 1997
Ron Paul- "I thought we Republicans were going to be scrapping the IRS and the tax code, not making it bigger. This legislation is a slap in the face to all parents, all employees and all employers. It is philosophically bankrupt to say there is a cost to government when people keep their own money. If we are concerned about revenues versus expenditures, then let's cut expenditures, not increase taxes. We could cut the Department of Education, the Department of Labor, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Energy, or we could bring our troops home from Bosnia. We must not raise taxes."
=====BACKSIDE===================================== ====================================
The following information is from various sources.
The question is - can we reduce spending. I think we can if we act necessarily and forthrightly. Eliminating or completely re-vamping 4 federal departments would be a good start. And I want to quickly show how feasible it would be to eliminate and/or drastically change the following departments.
***** DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION *****
leave it to the states.
it isnt a new wacky idea- remember these facts-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Education
President Ronald Reagan promised during the 1980 presidential election to eliminate the Department of Education as a cabinet post, but he was not able to do so with a Democratic House of Representatives. In the 1982 State of the Union Address, he pledged, "The budget plan I submit to you on Feb. 8 will realize major savings by dismantling the Department of Education." Throughout the 1980s, the abolition of the Department of Education was a part of the Republican Party platform, but the administration of President George H.W. Bush declined to implement this idea.
In 1996, the Republican Party made abolition of the Department a cornerstone of their campaign promises, calling it an inappropriate federal intrusion into local, state, and family affairs. The GOP platform read: "The Federal government has no constitutional authority to be involved in school curricula or to control jobs in the market place. This is why we will abolish the Department of Education, end federal meddling in our schools, and promote family choice at all levels of learning." During his 1996 presidential run, Senator Bob Dole promised, "We're going to cut out the Department of Education."
No Child Left Behind
Under President George W. Bush, the Department has primarily focused on elementary and secondary education, expanding its reach through the "No Child Left Behind" law. The Department's budget increased 69.6% between 2002 and 2004.
*****DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE*****
http://www.heritage.org/Research/GovernmentReform/HL536.cfm
the above link is a speech given by Former Senator Abraham Spencer
(who Bush had appointed as head of the dept of energy until recently; and who is now one of the Campaign Managers for Fred Thompson)
concentrate on this sentence i grabbed from the page-
[dept of commerce] ...to examine rational approaches to consolidate, privatize, and/or devolve back to the states [its] function....
and here is a little more from this speech by Abraham Spencer-
"no department better symbolizes the waste and duplication prevalent in the federal government than Commerce. First, many of the department's functions are either duplicated or outperformed by other government agencies and private industry. Its own Inspector General notes that the depart- ment has evolved into a "loose collection of more than 100 programs," while the GAO states that Commerce "faces the most complex web of divided authorities," sharing its "missions with at least 71 federal departments, agencies, and offices." Second, its bureaucracy is bloated, its infrastructure is in disrepair, and more than 60 percent of its resources are dedicated to noncommercial activities. For example, almost 60 percent of the department's $3.6 billion budget is consumed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)-the nation's weather and ocean mapping service. Today's Department of Commerce cannot be "reinvented." Its problems can be solved only if it is dismantled. Using the four guiding principles I mentioned earlier, our Commerce legislation would do the following: First, we would eliminate unnecessary, duplicative, and wasteful programs. Second, we would transfer the various functions of NOAA-which comprises the lion's share of the department's budget-to more appropriate agencies and departments, or to private institutions. For example, seafood inspection would be transferred to the Department of Agriculture, which already carries out most food inspection pro- grams. Marine and estuarine sanctuary management would be transferred to the Interior Department, which already manages some fisheries. Third, we would transfer many of the Commerce Department's trade programs to agencies where their functions may be better performed. Nineteen distinct federal agencies are charged with promoting U.S. exports, but only 8 percent of total federal spending on trade promotion is directed by Commerce.
*****DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY*****
https://www.cato.org/pubs/handbook/hb105-13.html
from the cato institute-
.....69 percent of its budget is directed at nuclear weapons or nuclear cleanup activities. Less than 4 percent of its budget is actually related to energy activities. The remaining 27 percent is devoted to research and development..........
.....If DOE's nondefense programs were privatized as a whole, the resulting private corporation would number 177 on the Fortune list of the 500 largest corporations in America.
Energy is no different from any other commodity in the marketplace. Energy production and distribution are better directed by market forces than by government planners and bureaucrats. Likewise, weapons maintenance and related nuclear activities are better directed by defense, than by energy, personnel. There is no more reason for a department of energy than for a department of automobiles.
.....Nuclear weapons production, maintenance, and related activities cost taxpayers about $5 billion annually, or 34 percent of DOE's budget. The department's various cleanup programs--another $5 billion annually--are necessitated by the environmental mismanagement of the nuclear weapons complex. Although the stockpile maintenance and cleanup operations certainly need to be continued, the agency responsible for those activities hardly needs to be represented at the president's cabinet table. There is no compelling reason for those activities to be under the administrative umbrella of an "energy'' department, since "energy'' has virtually nothing to do with either administrative function.
It makes far more administrative sense for those activities to be assumed by the Department of Defense
*****DEPARTMENT OF LABOR*****
this link is from the Heritage Foundation website
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Labor/BG1058.cfm
a long excellenct article discussing much about the need to greatly reform and reshape the way the federal government handles labor issues.
here is what i have so far,
the front has a pic of ron paul on top and below his letter
on the backside has my write up discussing the idea further
think it will fly?? :confused:
================
ron paul pic
+++++++++++++++++++
ELIMINATE THE IRS
Cough Up - by Ron Paul weekly - April 10, 2006
April 15th, our national tax day, comes this year just as Congress prepares to pass the 2007 federal budget. If you think paying taxes was painful this year, I’ve got some bad news: the new budget is a grotesque illustration of everything wrong with the federal government. At $2.7 trillion, it’s the largest budget in U.S. history by a long shot. Like it or not, the pressure to raise your taxes will be enormous in coming years no matter who controls Congress. The amount of money government spends, borrows, and prints simply cannot be sustained.
For most people, their income tax return represents their most meaningful interaction with the federal government. It requires them to confess their actions over the past year to the IRS in excruciating detail. It's an annual ritual guaranteed to elicit strong feelings of disgust. Thanks to the deception of income tax withholding, however, some people actually look forward to tax time and a much-anticipated refund. Imagine how quickly Americans would demand lower taxes and spending if they had to write the federal government a check each month.
Most people understandably want a simpler income tax system, but it’s useless to discuss tax reform without spending reform. Who wants a 40% flat tax? Who wants a national sales tax if it adds 50% to the retail price of everything we buy? In other words, why change the tax structure if spending stays the same? Once we accept that Congress needs $2.7 trillion from us, the only question is how it will be collected. The current answer is the labyrinthine tax code, which pits taxpayers against each other in a political scramble to make sure the other guy pays. The truth is that Congress does not need $2.7 trillion, or anything close to it, to fund the proper constitutional functions of the federal government.
The only tax reform needed is to lower or abolish existing taxes. When reform proposals seem complicated, the reason is simple: they obscure their true nature as schemes to shift the tax burden around. It’s not who pays or how we pay; it’s how much we pay.
The real enemy of tax reform is the spending culture in Washington. Let me repeat: we will never have tax reform in this country until Congress changes its spending habits. The reform rhetoric, regardless of which party it comes from, never changes the reality that federal spending grows every year. Congress spent $2.4 trillion in the last Bush budget; the new budget proposes to spend $2.7 trillion. The same unconstitutional agencies are funded, the same unwise programs are perpetuated, but at higher levels than last year. The previous budget serves merely as a baseline; the only question in any given year is how much spending will increase. Once created, no spending program is ever eliminated. The cycle goes on and on, with different administrations and different people in Congress.
But could America exist without an income tax? The idea seems radical, yet in truth America did just fine without a federal income tax for the first 126 years of her history. Prior to 1913, the government operated with revenues raised through tariffs, excise taxes, and property taxes, without ever touching a worker's paycheck. Even today, individual income taxes account for only approximately one-third of federal revenue. Eliminating one-third of the proposed 2007 budget would still leave federal spending at roughly $1.8 trillion-- a sum greater than the budget just 6 years ago in 2000! Does anyone seriously believe we could not find ways to cut spending back to 2000 levels? Perhaps the idea of an America without an income tax is not so radical after all. It’s something to think about this week as we approach April 15th.
+++++++++++++++++++
Press release- Thursday, October 23, 1997
Ron Paul- "I thought we Republicans were going to be scrapping the IRS and the tax code, not making it bigger. This legislation is a slap in the face to all parents, all employees and all employers. It is philosophically bankrupt to say there is a cost to government when people keep their own money. If we are concerned about revenues versus expenditures, then let's cut expenditures, not increase taxes. We could cut the Department of Education, the Department of Labor, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Energy, or we could bring our troops home from Bosnia. We must not raise taxes."
=====BACKSIDE===================================== ====================================
The following information is from various sources.
The question is - can we reduce spending. I think we can if we act necessarily and forthrightly. Eliminating or completely re-vamping 4 federal departments would be a good start. And I want to quickly show how feasible it would be to eliminate and/or drastically change the following departments.
***** DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION *****
leave it to the states.
it isnt a new wacky idea- remember these facts-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Education
President Ronald Reagan promised during the 1980 presidential election to eliminate the Department of Education as a cabinet post, but he was not able to do so with a Democratic House of Representatives. In the 1982 State of the Union Address, he pledged, "The budget plan I submit to you on Feb. 8 will realize major savings by dismantling the Department of Education." Throughout the 1980s, the abolition of the Department of Education was a part of the Republican Party platform, but the administration of President George H.W. Bush declined to implement this idea.
In 1996, the Republican Party made abolition of the Department a cornerstone of their campaign promises, calling it an inappropriate federal intrusion into local, state, and family affairs. The GOP platform read: "The Federal government has no constitutional authority to be involved in school curricula or to control jobs in the market place. This is why we will abolish the Department of Education, end federal meddling in our schools, and promote family choice at all levels of learning." During his 1996 presidential run, Senator Bob Dole promised, "We're going to cut out the Department of Education."
No Child Left Behind
Under President George W. Bush, the Department has primarily focused on elementary and secondary education, expanding its reach through the "No Child Left Behind" law. The Department's budget increased 69.6% between 2002 and 2004.
*****DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE*****
http://www.heritage.org/Research/GovernmentReform/HL536.cfm
the above link is a speech given by Former Senator Abraham Spencer
(who Bush had appointed as head of the dept of energy until recently; and who is now one of the Campaign Managers for Fred Thompson)
concentrate on this sentence i grabbed from the page-
[dept of commerce] ...to examine rational approaches to consolidate, privatize, and/or devolve back to the states [its] function....
and here is a little more from this speech by Abraham Spencer-
"no department better symbolizes the waste and duplication prevalent in the federal government than Commerce. First, many of the department's functions are either duplicated or outperformed by other government agencies and private industry. Its own Inspector General notes that the depart- ment has evolved into a "loose collection of more than 100 programs," while the GAO states that Commerce "faces the most complex web of divided authorities," sharing its "missions with at least 71 federal departments, agencies, and offices." Second, its bureaucracy is bloated, its infrastructure is in disrepair, and more than 60 percent of its resources are dedicated to noncommercial activities. For example, almost 60 percent of the department's $3.6 billion budget is consumed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)-the nation's weather and ocean mapping service. Today's Department of Commerce cannot be "reinvented." Its problems can be solved only if it is dismantled. Using the four guiding principles I mentioned earlier, our Commerce legislation would do the following: First, we would eliminate unnecessary, duplicative, and wasteful programs. Second, we would transfer the various functions of NOAA-which comprises the lion's share of the department's budget-to more appropriate agencies and departments, or to private institutions. For example, seafood inspection would be transferred to the Department of Agriculture, which already carries out most food inspection pro- grams. Marine and estuarine sanctuary management would be transferred to the Interior Department, which already manages some fisheries. Third, we would transfer many of the Commerce Department's trade programs to agencies where their functions may be better performed. Nineteen distinct federal agencies are charged with promoting U.S. exports, but only 8 percent of total federal spending on trade promotion is directed by Commerce.
*****DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY*****
https://www.cato.org/pubs/handbook/hb105-13.html
from the cato institute-
.....69 percent of its budget is directed at nuclear weapons or nuclear cleanup activities. Less than 4 percent of its budget is actually related to energy activities. The remaining 27 percent is devoted to research and development..........
.....If DOE's nondefense programs were privatized as a whole, the resulting private corporation would number 177 on the Fortune list of the 500 largest corporations in America.
Energy is no different from any other commodity in the marketplace. Energy production and distribution are better directed by market forces than by government planners and bureaucrats. Likewise, weapons maintenance and related nuclear activities are better directed by defense, than by energy, personnel. There is no more reason for a department of energy than for a department of automobiles.
.....Nuclear weapons production, maintenance, and related activities cost taxpayers about $5 billion annually, or 34 percent of DOE's budget. The department's various cleanup programs--another $5 billion annually--are necessitated by the environmental mismanagement of the nuclear weapons complex. Although the stockpile maintenance and cleanup operations certainly need to be continued, the agency responsible for those activities hardly needs to be represented at the president's cabinet table. There is no compelling reason for those activities to be under the administrative umbrella of an "energy'' department, since "energy'' has virtually nothing to do with either administrative function.
It makes far more administrative sense for those activities to be assumed by the Department of Defense
*****DEPARTMENT OF LABOR*****
this link is from the Heritage Foundation website
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Labor/BG1058.cfm
a long excellenct article discussing much about the need to greatly reform and reshape the way the federal government handles labor issues.