Wednesday, September 02, 2009

The Fair Tax Movement

Distortions be gone

There is a group out there pushing to put some sanity in our (the USA's) tax system. Right now withholding of taxes every paycheck means that people don't really know how much they are actually paying of their income to the government, special interest tax rules (like mortgage interest write-offs and companies writing-off debt interest) creates an economy that has too much debt so people that actually own the companies (50% or more of Americans own stock) don't control them and managers get big fees for just creating more debt (which of course then gets bailed out if they overdo it) and income is taxed, when it should be spending that is taxed, as income creates growth and investment.

Lastly of course government spending is out of control (with a deficit going from 3% of the economy to 12% of the economy in just the last three years - we would not be allowed in the Euro zone with these debt levels) so we need a balanced budget. Keynesian economics (deficit spending in hard times with a reduction of spending in good times) may be a good idea (to some) but it just doesn't work in political reality. It is time to let the sunshine in on America's tax system for more fairness and accountability. "Fairness", "accountability", "change" and "transparency" are all nice words which can be used as masks for political gain, but in this case they make sense.