Category: Fair Tax

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Watching My Figures

Yeh, I am losing weight to get into a decent suit for Lovely Daughter’s wedding (in 2 weeks), but that’s not what this post’s about. It’s about figuring things closer so the IRS has less of our $$ to screw around with over the course of the year.

Better with the IRS this year. Owed ’em about $100. Notsogood with the state. Refund about twice what we owed the feds. Have to work on that. Want it to come out at the end of the year at zero-zero. Getting closer, but still not there yet.

Better yet would be the FairTax. Then I’d not have to pull my hair out by the roots once a year when it came time to sit down with tax software… And that’s just one of many, many benefits the system would bring. (See my left sidebar.)

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T-13; 2.X-repeat: 13 Things to Hate about the IRS

tax_slave.jpg

This is an easy one, except for the part about limiting it to thirteen things…

1. The taxpayer is always guilty until proven innocent.

2. Withholding. See #1 and add in, “Where’s the interest on the money stolen before it’s really due on April 15?”

3. The forms, the forms… *arrrrrggghhhh!*

4. About #3… I’m sure the IRS can make the print smaller and the paper of crappier rag, but I’m unsure whether they chose the ink for its ability to cause an allergic reaction leading to total mental breakdown or if that’s just a psycosomatic reaction…

5. “Advice” from the IRS. First, can ya think “Conflict of interest”? Then, go ahead: ask the same question of three (or four) folks with the IRS. You’ll probably recieve four (or five) contradictory answers, most of them designed to cause you to get a nastly letter down the pike from someone else (or sometimes the same dumbasses) saying you are in error for following their counsel. Catch 10648 (that’s Catch 22 cubed).

6. Following on 5, if the IRS makes a mistake, IT IS YOUR FAULT. Remember that one: IT IS ALWAYS YOUR FAULT. It’s a simple corrollary of number 1.

7. Paying the borg for the priviledge of being financially and mentally raped. Thank you, Mr. Revenooer… We pay the IRS’s wages, exhorbitant operating expenses (and screwups associated with “updating” the RS’s antiquated computer systems, etc.). So, naturally, as with other feddle gummint bureaucracies, those who pay the costs are the slaves of the servant. Figures. (See the Kipling cited in “Read more here” below *sigh*).

8. The lies I. The taxes you pay to the IRS on or before the April 15 deadline every year reflects your effective tax rate to the feddle gummint, right? Nope. That’s a baldfaced lie. You also pay ALL the taxes on ALL the goods and services (added up all down the supply chain to the end user/consumer) of ALL the businesses producing goods and services you purchase (on those goods and services you purchase). Your effective tax rate is really more like at least double what you see on April 15 every year.

9. The Lies II: Pictures like this at the smarmy IRS website:

happy_taxpayers.jpg

Instead of the more honest:

slave_driver2.jpg

10. The very thought of IRS drones feeding at the public trough. Just think: if even half of them worked at productive jobs instead (while the other half went on the public dole), we’d be far, far better off.

11. Tax courts. See #1 again.

12. Damned snoops! (And I think I may well be using the term with theological accuracy–*heh*) Even friends of tax collectors get their own place in Dante’s Inferno, IIRC…

13. The ultimate indignity: being forced, by a monstrous tax code, to pay one shark (or more!–tax lawyer, accountant, TurboTax *spit*, whomever) to snatch a small portion of one’s carcass from the jaws of a bigger shark.

I could rail all day, but then I’d probably be singled out (may well be already) for harrassment by the IRS.

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Continue reading “T-13; 2.X-repeat: 13 Things to Hate about the IRS”

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Issues and Answers 1.02

Yesterday, I posted a video intro to The FairTax as an intro to the idea that real tax reform can have the single greatest ameliorative effect on our economic woes by introducing The FairTax. Today, part two:

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Issues and Answers 1.01

Of the many issues facing citizens nowadays, it’s easy to say that the answer to “What’s toward the top of your current concerns?” would be “It’s the economy, stupid.”

And, beyond simple concerns about oil/gasoline proices and the closely related rise in costs of concumer goods, that’s a very good answer. But it’s important that we understand that our economic problems go far beyond percieved consumer pain caused by rising costs and relatively stagnant wages. Think of several even more important, deeply embedded issues:

The primary “weapon” with which the U.S. used to bring down the Soviet Union was to sucker the soviets into attempting to compete with our economy. And still today, our best largely unused weapon against enemies such as Islamic terrorism is our economy. That’s something even a noncom fighting in Afganistan recognizes (a long read, and the economic observations are buried well down, but a read wll worth your time. h.t. Rosenary’s Thoughts).

Suffice it to say, every effort made by our politicians *spit* to weaken our economy both in obvious ways and in obscure, structural ways, is working. The dollar is at its weakest in decades; our trade imbalance is growing; our indebtedness as a nation is worsening. What to do?

Let’s start with some common sense steps. Step number 1 (even more important than Drill Here-Drill Now): Embrace the FairTax.

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Whither Now, Conservative?

A Few Shiny Pebbles notes the serious problem of articulating conservative first principles. That’s nothing new. I could wish that American Conservatism did not conform to the model that R.L. Dabney noted in the 19th Century, but wishes alone ain’t gonna wash the dog…

“Conservatism’s history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation. What was the resisted novelty of yesterday is today one of the accepted principles of conservatism; it is now conservative only in affecting to resist the next innovation, which will tomorrow be forced upon its timidity and will be succeeded by some third revolution, to be denounced and then adopted in its turn. American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward to perdition. It remains behind it, but never retards it, and always advances near its leader. This pretended salt hath utterly lost its savor: wherewith shall it be salted? Its impotency is not hard to explain. It is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. It tends to risk nothing serious for the sake of truth.”

As I said much earlier (January 21, 2008) in this election cycle regarding the choices being offered us for the presidential race (choices that by and large reflect the choices also offered us in other races),

Folks, the only difference of opinion that bears on elections of late is this: do you or do you not favor scrapping America in order to make it over into a fledgling third world country, as France, et al are attempting to do in Europe? Each and every one of the potential candidates [running for office as Dhims, and most who are running as Repubs *sigh*] are in favor of policies that would Frenchify America even further. It is still possible that the Republican’ts may come up with a candidate who is willing to at least drag his feet in approaching the ultimate goal of pulling America down to the level of Mexico or Saudi Arabia or Iran or even *shudder* France.

Remember: modern “liberalism” (which is not liberal in any rational sense of the word) has as its ultimate goal is to destroy the America the Founders left us. Nothing else will satisfy the left’s cravings for multiculturalist, divisive victim identity, statist anarcho-tyranny politics.

And, looking at most Repugnican’t candidates for federal offices, how much less do they advocate multiculturalist, divisive victim identity, statist anarcho-tyranny politics?

About 1/2 ounce less.

Want to clarify conservatism? Start with this–but unlike the current crop of politicians *spit* you must MEAN it–with every fiber of your being proclaim:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

(Yes, I added emphasis to a portion not usually cited.)

THEN, read through the “long train of abuses” and ask yourself: Would the Founders long endure the “long train of abuses” of life, liberty and property our current government regularly inflicts upon The People today?

Kelo
Government sponsored baby killing
TSA
Ruby Ridge, Waco
Martha Stewart, Ramos and Compean, et-oh-so-many-al
Promotion of the Cult of Hate and persecution of the religion that teaches, “Love your enemy”
Punitive taxation of the productive and subsidy of the slackers
Punishment of citizens in order to reward outlaws (the Bush-McCain-Kennedy amnesty bill for ILLEGAL aliens comes readily to mind here)

Failure at every level to protect citizens from its own abuses is becoming the hallmark of our own Federal government.

Is it time for a rearticulation of the Declaration of Independence? Maybe, but do note the header quote for this blog:

“In a democracy (“rule by mob”), those who refuse to learn from history are usually in the majority and dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance.”-third world county’s corollary of Santayana’s Axiom

Makes one wish for an electorate that matched the Founders’ model more closely, eh?

Any political conservatism that does not focus on protecting The People’s life, liberty and property is not conservatism at all, but something very like Dabney’s description. Any political aims that threaten The People’s lives, liberties or property must be eliminated from so-called conservatives’ lexicon of political aims. Still, one must work with what one has, unless another Revolution is forced upon the few remaining conservatives in this nation (and I do not doubt that there are far too few who possess the Founders’ conservative values for such a thing to ever come to pass), and so, even though some of the suggestions below make use of Federal usurpation of People’s and States’ rights and responsibilities, let’s start with what we have:

Given: that the Federal government has far too much influence on “energy policy”; it ought at least to focus that policy on protecting its citizens from foreign limitations on their “pursuit of happiness” instead of playing footsie with such as the Saudis who export not only overpriced oil but jihadism.

Energy policy: allow the exploitation of ALL known oil deposits; remove artificial Federal barriers to atomic energy production; remove artificial Federal barriers to building new refineries; remove artificial (and, frankly, harmful) barriers to oil manufacture via small TDP plants, etc.; scrap NASA and in its place offer “X Prizes” for space ventures focused on energy production (and resource enhancement–see Pournelle’s “A Step Farther Out” for examples): these would be a start.

Given: the Federal tax structure is not only a mess, it penalizes productivity and thrift and is exactly the kind of taxation the Founders saw as abusive. The Fair tax would return our Federal government to something more like the Founders envisioned, while still affording a realistic nod to current Federal excesses of non-constitutional (and thus illegitimate) authority by continuing the current funding levels. I have read all the critiques of The Fair Tax I can get my hands on and have reluctantly concluded that almost all the critics (all of the critics I’ve seen in Mass Media Podpeople bloviations) I have read are either idiots or liars. Get the facts. No, the real facts.

Given: the Federal government is doing damn all to protect its citizens from foreign invaders. 20,000,000 or more illegal aliens; at least 80% of them Mexicans entering through our southern border. And what do our federales want to do? Roll over on their backs and pee themselves like submissive puppies, lapdogs to successive Mexican regimes. Close the damned borders. Close them and allow people through ONLY at official gateways and ONLY according to already established law. Prosecute to the fullest extent of the law each and every employer of illegal aliens. Deny ALL Federal funding to ALL agencies, municipalities, states that provide social services to illegal aliens (yes, I mean schools and hospitals as well). Recognize and effect policy to reflect the FACT that by entering our country in defiance of our laws, illegal aliens have asserted that they are NOT under our jurisdiction and so they are NOT under legal protection, either. Make our country so very harshly inimical to ILLEGAL aliens (and warmly friendly to LEGAL aliens) that the masses of alien invaders will seek to return to their own lands.

There’s more, of course, but you get the drift: protection of CITIZENS’ lives, liberties and property is the legitimate function of our government. Anything else is just cause for rebellion. And that’s exactly what we need at the polls: rebellion. Mass write-ins. We need, as well, to harass–yes, harass–any congresscritter who allows or encourages abuse of citizens to continue. We can do it nicely for a while, perhaps, but if such abuse continues, then a genuine “fairness doctrine” would assert that those who encourage or allow such abuses to continue ought to be themselves abused. Excoriation in print, in person, via phone; campaigns for removal from office; continual denunciations to each and every person of our acquaintance: these and more are the just due of any politician who does not FIRST seek to PROTECT the lives, liberties and property of his constituents, whether from outlaws or from an outlaw government that simply legislates outlawry. (Yeh, the perfect definition of anarcho-tyranny: when government becomes THE Outlaw Gang.)

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Prescription for What Ails US: Hope and Change

Yes, both “us” and “US”. This will be short (relatively), and I will provide zero supporting elements. Any comments resulting from readers doing their own homework on the elements below are welcome. Comments that demonstrate absolutely no knowledge of the elements below will be mocked. Do your own homework. I will NOT provide links here. You can type “google.com” as easily as I can.

Barry Hussein Obama-Winfrey floats a lot of hot air about “hope” and “change” (yeh, he hopes to change the US into a completely socialist society filled with grievance groups of “victims” leeching off producers–and he has a good chance of success). Well, unless we, as an electorate, take steps to knock a few politicians *spit*, bureaucraps and assorted other leeches on the head (metaphorically, you understand) in order to change the direction our coutry is headed, I hold out little hope for a future U.S. with any resemblance to the City Set on a Hill envisioned by the Founders.

What must be done (apart from throwing the bums out of office–darned near every elected official we can find)? Several things would stem the tide–perhaps even roll it back.

1. Don’t take this lightly. Every person I’ve presented this to so far (and I’ve been talking this up in the RW for years *sigh* so far w/o much movement) has expressed a positive response–even those who view themselves as “lefties”:

Each State of the Union needs an amendment to its State constitution providing that
a. every elective position on each ballot include “none of the
above” as a choice on the ballot
b. if “none of the above” recieves a plurality of votes, then ALL
candidates listed for that ballot position are disqualified from
seeking that office in the future and
c. a new election must be held for that position with new
candidates.

Frankly, I could see “none of the above” winning in a landslide in the upcoming presidential election…

2. Get the feds OUT of public education, at ALL levels. Out. No influence, no monies, no diktats. Nada, zilch, a big zero with the rim kicked off. Then work on reducing State influence on local schools. Make local school boards and parents completely responsible for their children’s education. With around 2/3 of recent college graduates functional illiterates, largely as a result of early intervention by “feddle gummint” busybodies’ stupid policies, we need to get the fedgov out of education.

It’d be a start.

3. Do some commonsense things to get our economy back on track. No, I’m not talking here about the recent Chicken Little wails about recession. I’m talking here about the fact that we’ve been strongly encouraged (in large part by stupid fedgov meddling) to become a nation of consumers surrendering more and more of our nation’s producing capabilities. “Line jobs”–factory work, even low-to-medium skill work–is dropping off, and this suits socialists just fine (more dependents for government handouts) but does nothing for a republic of free folk. Look, by definition, half our population is “below average” in intellectual potential. What are you going to do for productive, meaningful work for thse folks as more and more real goods manufacturing is moved offshore? Put ’em all in call centers making telemarketing annoyances of themselves?

Or maybe they can all go to work for McDonalds. Ya want fries with that?

To stem the tide of manufacturing jobs bleeding from our society (mixing metaphors is what metas are for, IMO :-)), two simple things would make a huge difference. (Do remember Clausewitz’s admonition that “everything in war is simple, but the simplest thing is difficult” and remember that we The People must recognize that we are in a sort of war with our political buffoons *cough* leaders.)

a. despite the opposition of politicians who do NOT want to
reliquish the power over your life that the IRS and the income
tax gives them, we must press for The Fair Tax.

Do your own homework. I’ve posted enough FACTS here at twc in the past to demolish most of the disingenuous arguments against the plan, so any comments demonstrating you have not done your homewoprk will be roundly raspberried. Rational argument demonstrating you’ve done your homework will be welcome, though. (*crickets chirping*)

b. a 10% accross-the-board tarrif on ALL imports from
EVERYWHERE, no exceptions whatsoever. Period.

These two things alone would do much to restore America’s competitiveness in manufacturing, create more jobs for the average joe (and josephine :-)), strengthen the dollar and encourage thrift (more investment capital–of the right kind).

4. Get a handle on illegal immigrants who are stealing American jobs, stressing American health and social services, Close our borders. Period. Make sure we facilitate LEGAL immigration, but close our borders, seriously police them–like Mexico does its Southern border (complete with shoot to kill orders, exactly as Mexico does). And aggressively go after ALL employers of illegal aliens (are you listening, Tyson?). Shut down the jobs and social services (all social services except for legitimate health emergencies–provide emergency health care and then a free ride to the border) and watch the flood of illegals make their way to the borders. And make no mistake, of the 20,000,000 or more ilegals in this country, much more than 75% of them will head south… Eisenhower accomplished similar results in the 1950s, and what man has done, man can aspire to do… It ain’t rocket science.

Reminder: any arguments with assertions made above should show you’ve done your homework.

5. Make some commonsense decisions about energy policy. Right now, energy policy is being made by stupid, short-sighted politicians who’re either afraid of their shadows (eco-whackos) or bought and paid for lackeys of oil companies, OR by greedy, short-sighted energy company execs who just want to cash in now without serious thought for the future.

a. eliminate our need for fossil fuels for electricity production.
E-lim-in-ate.

MIT has put plans for a modular pebble bed reactor in the public domain. China likes it. Although China is now leading the world in oil imports (actually, energy imports of all kinds), it plans on being a net exporter of energy within the next decade, relying largely on pebble bed reactors. Now, admittedly, PBRs are not the most technically advanced possibilities for nuclear energy production, but the technology is here, now, and is safer than any other energy production method, save possibly hydro-generation, that can approach its ability to provide large-scale electricity production. Safe. (Do your homework. Oh, and include readings on radioactivity, hormesis and what actually happens when Cobalt60 is accidentally introduced into the building materials for a large apartment complex… yeh, you get one link from me to start you off. It’s a PDF file. :-).) And please, no cries of “What to do with nuclear waste?” That problem’s been solved, solved and solved again. Take your pick of safe, eficient and easy methods. It’s 19th Century engineering.

But oil for other uses? Why the heck is the U.S. importing oil at all? We already have enough reserves for short-to-medium term oil production. If the fedgov would get out of the way, that is. And technologies like thermal depolymnerization manufacturing of oil are proven technologies. Heck, if every lil burg simply contracted with a TDP company to process its raw sewage, the lil burgs would have their clean water as a “by-product” and the contracting company could sell the oil. Everybody wins. And the odor some folks complain about from TDP plants? Not any worse than raw sewage, my friends, and the odor from TDP plants has this advantage: it smells like money. Talk about win-win-win-win: lower costs could be assessed on citizens for water treatment, city has a new business to tax (*feh*), the Saudis and Hugo Chavez take it on the chin, and the TDP business makes money.

And nuclear energy, available proven reserves and TDP plants are just three of many things we could be doing right now to wean ourselves of foreign oil. No pie in the sky technology leaps necessary, just political will.

There you have it: the twc five-point plan. It’s not exhaustive (I’ve not mentioned, for example, annual meetings of Mass Media Podpeople with Dr. Tarr and Mr. Fether or many of the other things that would benefit our society), but you get the picture.

Argument welcome, but remember the warning above: comments that demonstrate the commenter hasn’t bothered to do his/her homework will be mocked.

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Taxes

Why do I do it to myself? Every year I buy TurboTax again, so I can import my previous years’ data. No longer. Next year, I swear to break the chains of this bondage.

What’s that? I’ve grown to hate TurboTax. Once, in the deep dark ages of tax software, I used Parson’s Taxedge and the the software was a dream to use. Easy, accurate, simple.

Then Bob Parsons sold out to Intuit. I bought TurboTax because it swore it could import my previous yea’s data seamlessly.

Almost did.

First gripe.

The next few years were slightly better, but every year for the past five years or so, TurboTax has gotten progressively worse.

Last year, it stumbled on importing data from its own format from the previous year.

This year?

How do I hate thee? Let me count the ways…

First thing out of the chute, it refused to install un;ess I installed Microsoft’s abortion of a browser, Internet Exploder, the World’s Crappiest Browser.

Strike one.

Then, TurboTax wanted to update itself. Fine. Except… unlike ALL other internet-aware applications I have installed on the computer I installed TT on, it alone could not find an internet connection.

Quit TT. Opened it again. NOW it finds a connection! Stupid Intuit piece of crapware.

So, started importing/inputting data. Came to my Wonder Woman’s W-2. “Import!’ said I. Nope. TT can’t find an internet connection. WTF?!?!? It found it for updates, so what’s the deal? Called Intuit. Oh, had to

1. register to obtain an incident number.
2. get an email with a link to my incident number/telephone support number.

Kinda lame, but OK.

Called. 35 minutes on hold, switched to a support person and… CLICK… dropped!

Meanwhile, I’d finished my return. Hmmm… something funny. Several hundred $$$ more than I expected in a refund (I aim for having just the right amounts witheld, if possible).

Save return.

Exit.

Reopen TT. Wants to update again. Let it. Can’t find a connection.

Close TT.

Open TT (By now I’ve learned). Wants to update. Let it. It updates.

Open return. WTF?!?!? MANY hundreds of $$$ OWED, now (OK, within $7 of $1,000. You do the subtraction.)

From more tha expected in REFUND to nearly $1,000 OWED after a second update of the software.

Saved return. Closed TT.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Started a NEW return. Input same data. Now owe $115. Not bad. In fact, more in line with what I was expecting to begin with (a little, wee, tiny boost in income from non-witholding sources over and above what I’d allowed for leading into 2007).

OK, move on to State.

WTF?!?!? $1,100+ OWED? This can NOT be right!

Downloaded the interactive pdf from the state. Figured taxes in 10 minutes using data from my federal return. Nice REFUND (hadn’t figured some changes in state law into witholding plan in 2007, so we get some non-interest-paying money back from the brigands at the state capitol *heh*).

Never really figured what was going on w/TT, but after closing/reopening/(no internet connection for updates)/closing/reopening/updating/back in state return, finally TT agreed with the interactive state return.

Crazy.

If you’re doing your taxes with TurboTax 2008 and have more than one or two sources of income, you had better recheck your results with several different tools, several different ways, IMO.

Just saying.

Yet another reason to get behind The Fair Tax. Imagine: no more TurboTax! *heh* Almost as wonderful a phrase as “No more IRS!”

🙂

(Update & Aside: my state has done something right. If income taxes must be levied, at least make compliance easy. Just so: well-designed, fill-in-the-blank, auto-calculating pdf files that can be saved with the data one inputs, printed, mailed. Sure, I could have used one of the IRS-approved (or so it seems to imply) “free” tax sites to do my state taxes (my fed is too complex for any I looked into), but why, when I can get the material straight from the horse’s mouth? Good stuff. Well, about as good as income taxes *spit* get.)

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Read the FairTax Book, Fred!

By now, both readers of twc *heh* know that I’m pretty much a “Fredhead”–that I believe Fred Thompson’s the only sane, adult human candidate running for the presidency. *heh* Yet still, there are a couple of things I’d certainly like to sit down and have a long discussion with him about, things I think he ought to address seriously in some way. One involves his reasoning for a couple of his senate votes. Oh, I understand his reasoning; I just disagree with him. The other is his inexplicable lack of support for the Fair Tax (and his own proposed tax plan).

Neal Boortz‘s article yesterday (January 7–by the time you read this, he may already have shifted it to his “archives” section, h.t., Hugh, a regular reader) touches on one of those things talking heads always–always–get wrong about the Fait Tax, either because they are too stupid to understand these things (or too lazy to do their homework) or because they have a specific agenda and are simply lying by omission or comission: imnedded taxes in the current plan and how the Fair Tax eliminates them. In yesterday’s article, Boortz takes one such Mass Media Podperson to task for getting this massive benefit wildly wrong… by simply not mentioning it.

There are several core principles of the FairTax, and one of them is that the new national retail sales tax will replace the federal taxes that are already embedded in the price of everything we buy. We didn’t make the embedded taxes up. The study was done by Harvard economists. I thought the left loved Harvard. These economists determined that, on the average, 22 percent of the cost of everything we buy represents the total embedded tax burden of every person or company responsible for bringing that product to the marketplace. Those taxes disappear under the FairTax, and when they disappear competitive marketplace pressures will drive that tax component out of the price. Then along comes the 23 percent FairTax to replace it. Result? The item costs pretty much the same. Now any reporter who wanted to do any research at all would be able to figure this out … yet Redburn makes absolutely no mention at all of embedded taxes in his article.

Why? Sloppy reporting? Or an agenda? This is a concept that hundreds of thousands of waiters and waitresses, truck drivers, construction workers, electricians, retail and service workers, farmers, hotel housekeepers and yes, even accountants understand .. but a New York Times reporter can’t?

But wait! There’s more! Redburn, of course, repeats all the fake talking points of Fair Tax opponents (except the political expediency talking point: the Fair Tax is gaining such broad based support that that lil point is starting to drop off the boards *heh*), including the old fake, “But most analysts say the tax rate necessary to replace current federal revenues, under any likely plan, would actually need to be much higher,” argument. The “most experts” referred to there are either the ones on or twice-removed, self-proclaimed “experts” citing the President’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform, which was forbidden to review the Fair Tax plan! So, such “experts” are talking “peaches” to the Fair Tax “apples” and any observations they made/make are invalid, period.

Let me repeat myself: every single critic of the Fair Tax plan that I’ve read or heard has either lied or through a lack of actually doing their homework repeated the lies of others in their attacks. Kinda makes one wonder just what their agenda really is, eh?

Oh, it’s simple, really: any tax plan that deposes the political power of Washington politicians *spit* and bureaucraps to meddle in folks’ lives is anathema to these statists. The Fair TAx plan is the ONLY plan that’s been floated that

a. returns the Federal government to the consumption tax principles, though not the exact model, of the Framers
b. puts the power to actually pay taxes back in the hands of the ones who pay and
c. removes that bureau of Satan, the IRS, from the electorate’s back

Each of these things gives statists the willies, which is why, absent any substantive arguments against the Fair Tax, they lie.

*sigh*

But that still doesn’t adequately explain to me why–while not openly opposing it–Fred Thompson hasn’t jumped on the Fair Tax bandwagon with all he has… and that’s something I’d dearly like to have a sit-down with him about.

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Posted on

Let Fred annoy you. I’ll wait my turn. (Hsst! Open Post!)

Fred Reed often makes more sense than can be comprehended by several hundred congresscritters, academia nuts, loony left (and right) moonbats and all Mass Media Podpeople put together, working assiduously day and night…

Designing We Shall Go

“A few thoughts regarding the recent foolishness in the courts of Pennsylvania over Intelligent Design:

A pertinent question is why the curricula of the schools should be the concern of judges, who are little more than the enforcement arm of the academic and journalistic elites, imposing on Kansas what could not be legislated in Washington. I see no evidence that judges deploy intelligence, knowledge, or any other qualification other than boundless belief in their unlimited jurisdiction.

Another question is precisely what is meant by Intelligent Design. The answer is not easily divined by reading newspapers: The press have many virtues, but facility in communication is not among them. Reporters, whose thinking is tightly templated, seem to think that Intelligent Design has something to do with Christianity. I know many who suspect intelligent design, but are not religious. This idea is too difficult for reporters, and too dangerous for Darwinists. If one heresy may be discussed, so may others be, and the cracks in the foundations become evident… “

Lots more, all designed to annoy the living daylights out of any “right-thinking” person.

🙂

Meanwhile, link to this post (http://thirdworldcounty.blogspot.com/2006/01/let-fred-annoy-you-ill-wait-my-turn_13.html) and trackback (http://www.haloscan.com/tb/mnmus/113712088679136482/).

Pingposting this poisoned apple at TMH’s Bacon Bits.

Posted on

Sad State of Education 0106-2

Here’s an update/addendum via Hugh:

College grads’ literacy shows ‘appalling’ drop
Test finds many cannot interpret tables, food labels

While more Americans are graduating from college, and more than ever are applying for admission, far fewer are leaving higher education with the skills needed to comprehend routine data, such as reading a table about the relationship between blood pressure and physical activity, according to the federal study conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics.

I have a pdf of an article (well, book excerpt) that expands on this theme. I need to review that and see about posting it, too, I imagine.

But seriously, is this any surprise? Anyone who has been a voracious reader for 30, 40 or 50 years can certainly tell after a brief conversation or exchange of e-s or a few comments on a blogpost that recent crops of college grads (and from my experience, it doesn’t much matter where they graduated from) are extremely poorly read, and indeed largely lack certain qualities that widely-read people seem to almost universally possess. Among those possessions are a cultural liteeracy that transcends the pablum available through popular media; a sparpened ability to think logically; and a written vocabulary that reflects a.) an actual understanding of the meanings of words rthey use and b.) orthography that demonstrates they have read, not just heard the words they are using.

This morning My Favorite Librarian related to me some tragi-comic typos, word misuses and serious syntactical problems creating amphibolous meanings of whole passages… in a book about research into ways to improve reading.

heh

Might I suggest one way would be to write books that spelled words correctly, used words properly and had good, logical syntax? Oh. That was the theme of one of the SECTIONS of this book!

When subliterates are writing books on how to improve reading skills, then we are all in for a bumpy ride…

{EDIT/ADDENDUM} From Pournelle, again:

…one wonders if the champions of political correctness don’t send their kids to private schools or teach them to read at an early age themselves, so that by ruining the public schools they can keep the lower classes who can’t afford private schools in their places? If the system were designed to solidify class boundaries, ruining the public schools by preventing the teaching of reading would be the first step to take. Since this is the result produced, I wonder again if it is not intended. How can so many educated people be so stupid? How can they ignore all evidence that their imbecile meddling is producing disasters?

Are those in charge of education fools, or are they evil? Those are the only alternatives I come up with. Political correctness is not a game with inconsequential implications, it is a monstrous system for keeping the minorities down, solidifying class lines, and generally seeing that the worst stay on top.

Ditching a trip to the principal’s office for the Tuesday Specials at Jo’s Cafe