January 25, 1996
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
... Declaration of Independence
The era of big government is over.
... William Jefferson Clinton, State of the Union, 1996
Announcing the FRATRICIDE Flat Tax Plan!
In the wake of the Kemp Committee report, FRATRICIDE is pleased to propose a tax policy overhaul of unprecedented proportions. The FRATRICIDE Flat Tax Plan is the soul of equity, the spirit of simplicity, and the heart of liberty, guaranteed to deflate the Washington bureaucracy and send the liberals running for the hills. It has seven provisions:
- The government must announce by December 31 of each year the amount of money it plans to spend in excess of service fee receipts in the coming year. This number is "dollars".
- The government must announce on December 31 of each year the population of the United States over the age of 18. This number is "people".
- To compute the tax liability of each person over the age of 18 for the coming year, divide "dollars" by "people"; the result is "taxes".
- Each person over the age of 18 is required to mail in a check for one twelfth of "taxes" by the fifteenth of each month.
- No deductions or inequities of any kind are allowed, and no excuses are accepted.
- The amount of money individuals must pay to sustain government is clearly visible.
- If you do not like the amount, elect a Congress that will spend less.
Completely fair, no deficits are possible.
Maximally obnoxious -- pain inflicted every month.
The FRATRICIDE Flat Tax Plan: an idea whose time has come.
Two years ago, the flat tax idea was discussed seriously only among the scholarly elite and the lunatic fringe. Today, the idea is being widely and seriously debated, spoken of as though it could become law in a few months. This demonstrates how deeply the hatred and resentment of the various tax collecting and administration systems runs in this country. With inequity piled on top of inequity, the current tax code has no friends at all: it is just a question of which system prevails to replace it.
Despite the vigor and health of the present debate, the flat tax issue misses the boat on two counts: (1) flat rate income tax proposals still require the government to know, and determine the grounds for computing, the individual incomes of its taxpaying citizens, and (2) the flat rate tax system does not, in itself, reduce or even address the amount of money diverted to taxation and unproductive government enterprise.
The most important objections to the current tax code are its inequities and the intrusiveness of the tax collection bureaucracy. The inequities are dealt with, to a certain extent, by a flat rate tax system. But so long as the individual tax liability is computed from taxable income, regardless of how that is determined, the government must have the means to determine whether the amount of taxable income reported is correct. This has led to an intolerably intrusive system spearheaded by the IRS, an institution that has unparalleled powers to arrest, seize property, discard the presumption of innocence, introduce multiple and even perpetual jeopardy, invade privacy, and levy fines, all without a any kind of federal court judgement. The tax withholding laws, in effect, garnish the wages of every working person in America. The authors of the Constitution would be horrified at the IRS's trampling of the Bill of Rights. This system is not a fit one for a free people. Beneficial as it might otherwise be, a flat rate income tax system will not get rid of this problem.
But the most important point of all is being missed throughout the discussion of tax reform and balancing the budget and so on: taxes need to be reduced. Americans pay much too much in taxes. If the marginal tax rate were down around 10%, this nation would see growth and wealth that it never dreamed possible before. America would become a low-cost producer that no nation in the world could compete with. There would be a new burst of freedom as millions who were previously tied to jobs with no growth potential found new opportunities. Most of all, government would become controllable again; without so much money to spend, government would have to become smaller, less intrusive, less of a player in the economy, concentrating more on its legitimate responsibilities. The only thing standing in the way of this is the political support for the current size of government and its appetite for public funds.
Each dollar in excess of basic governmental needs that is diverted to government is a dollar wasted, a dollar that would have been used to purchase something that someone wanted removed from the economy to purchase something no one wanted. A "revenue-neutral" flat rate income tax system will not lower the income to government or significantly decrease the amount of money diverted from productive channels to nonproductive ones. We need to shift the focus to this issue, which lies at the very core of this historic debate.
Are we going to continue to be a nation of tax slaves, or are we willing to return the role of government to its original definition as the guarantor of freedom, economic, political, and personal? With the era of big government over, according to one widely recognized source, the direction seems clear.
All contents © Copyright 1995, 1996 by Redmon Barbry ¶ 8:40 PM
