The ONLY Fair Tax Plan
Shouldn't you get to decide how your tax dollars are spent?
One of the major factors in the 1st American Revolution was "taxation without representation." Our forefathers were being taxed heavily by the British, but they were not allowed a voice in government. They had all of the burdens of citizenship and none of the privileges. The British taxed everything and ignored the colonists pleas for rights.
Exactly the same thing is happening today in the United States, only we are being used by our own elected officials rather than an overseas power. Our misrepresentatives use OUR money to fund pork belly projects for special interest groups and sell us downriver to political action committees. They take kickbacks and payoffs and create bad legislation which helps only a very small segment of society.
Our bureaucrats create agencies and departments and subsidies all outside the will of the American people. We have no input into where our money is spent at all. THIS IS WRONG.
I propose the only fair system of taxation. I call it the "HeinLineback tax proposal." It is a retroactive application of the tax laws I first heard proposed in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" by Robert A Heinlein, written in 1966.
Heinlein was a visionary in many ways. The book describes artificial intelligence at the dawn of the computer age, but the main theme of the book was liberty.
On Heinlein's moon, the only laws that existed were the laws that people would PAY to enforce. If you voted for something you had to pay for it. Since people saw a direct correlation between their vote and their taxes they passed as few laws as possible. This was done when the moon was first colonized.
Unfortunately we are already stuck with the laws, agencies and programs that we don't want and which we never got to vote on before their start or on their continued funding.
Our reckless elected officials are spending money that is not theirs. The money they are currently spending is YOURS, or more specifically, yours and your children's and their children's and the children of children yet unborn. They spend the resources of the next generation buying votes to remain in power today. NO MORE.
Our democratic party leaders refuse to pass budgets that REDUCE spending. They hold the government hostage in their self-serving elitist fashion. Worse yet, our cowardly republican party leaders always talk the talk about deficit reduction, yet year after year they cave to the democrats and special interest groups because they are afraid of the possibility of losing a single vote.
They are too gutless to reign in spending so it must be done by the American people.
This is my proposal. The first year our tax rates would remain exactly the same as they are now.
The ONLY difference in year one is that each and every taxpayer in the United States will designate where his or her tax dollars will be spent in the upcoming year.
The bureaucrats will no longer get to determine what the American people buy and pay for, the citizen will. Each citizen will designate where his or her tax money goes. Each citizen can allocate their taxes by government department, agency or program. Conversely they can designate which departments or agencies they DO NOT WANT TO FUND. People who do not care how the government wastes their money will not be forced to participate in the designation of funds and they can simply allow it to fall into a "general fund" like the one we have now so it can continue to be mismanaged, or more ideally, pay down the national debt. This can be applied at the Federal, State and Local level.
The benefits of this are twofold. First: if someone doesn't want to pay for a wall THEY DON'T HAVE TO. If someone doesn't want to have to pay for planned parenthood THEY DON'T HAVE TO. If they think that the most important thing for the government to do is build the military they can designate their taxes for the military. If they think the government should be investing in education they can put their money there.
The FOLLOWING YEAR each department and agency will have the funds designated by the taxpayer AND NO MORE. The ongoing tax rate will be 15% of income for everyone without exception. Agencies that become unfunded cease to exist. If NO CITIZEN wants to pay for it then there is absolutely no reason for it to exist. The proliferation of so many agencies that NO citizens got to vote on is the very substance of taxation without representation.
As citizens with common sense begin to dictate how the money is spent our budget will shrink. Gutless freespenders will no longer have to cave to special interests or lie to voters because the voter will be telling them what they want by what they fund. As agencies cease to exist the overall tax burden will be lessened and Americans everywhere can enjoy less taxes.
The second, incidental benefit of this system is that it will limit the favors that can be sold by our elected misrepresentatives. They won't be able to promise anyone that they will get a payout by the government BECAUSE THEY WON'T CONTROL THE MONEY.
If you believe that this is a good and just solution please forward it to everyone you know.