Monday, April 18, 2011
Preserving and Improving America
Conservatives are in the business of preserving and improving any and all worthwhile aspects of the American way of life as they perceive it.
This includes, among many factors:
1. A nation of laws: the Constitution, civil or positive laws, customs and rules.
2. Freedom and Liberty for all citizens, including strong property rights, and the right to own and use guns, as well as freedoms of speech, travel, association, and religion.
3. The free market system, yet with adequate active regulation that effectively prevents fraud and abuse.
4. Maintaining the full and complete sovereignty of the US, and not ceding any aspect of sovereignty whatsoever to an international body, especially not the UN.
5. Natural rights, natural laws, and natural duties.
6. Financial rectitude and budgetary common sense. We support adequate control of spending and borrowing, and orderly and effective reduction of the national debt over time.
7. Charity (that many call welfare) for the needy, the ill, and the destitute.
8. A strong defensive capability for both homeland protection and foreign wars if and when necessary. We believe in just war.
9. Preserving social institutions, customs, and traditions of the nation against the onslaught of progressive changes that would harm a majority of the people.
10. Education of all citizens that succeeds in preparing them to be good and creative citizens in our republic, but not fostering a costly Federal bureaucratic educational superstructure and unions. We need to revert to the tried and true subjects and texts, and the unbiased teachers of yesterday.
11. Moral rectitude and belief in the Golden Rule.
12. The use of science to make life better for all, and to improve our knowledge in all directions.
13. Belief in the nation, patriotism.
14. Outreach to troubled nations.
15. Being a staunch ally to those that we make common cause with by either treaty or simple agreement.
16. Unwavering, implacable enemy of those that would damage or destroy the US or our real friends.
17. The idea of being successful at all that we undertake, be it: social, political, economic, military, environmental, or religious.
18. The exceptionalism of the American experiment in governance: the Constitution of the United States of America as a nonpareil system of thought.
19. The custom of admitting immigrants by a legal process and assimilating them within a generation or so is proper. The necessity is clear for deportation of illegal immigrants and not amnesty.
20. Minimal taxation necessary for running the government, but not for redistribution of wealth per se. Fair taxation is the goal, while progressive schemes are not acceptable. The goal is to let each citizen keep as much of his earnings as possible.
21. Identification of elements that need changes over time, either by expansion or by collapse, and working carefully to institute them using both the legal procedures of the Constitution, and the legislature, and the judiciary and the administration, as the Constitution envisions it to take place.
22. Understanding that Islam is not compatible with our freedoms and liberty, that its jihadist element is an existential threat to the US and way of life, and hence Islam has no standing as a non-threatening religion under our Constitution.
23. Belief that public unions should not be allowed in government at all, and that unions whose actions imperil the citizenry, such as preventing dairy supplies from entering a city, not manning aircraft controller positions, or impeding the defense of the nation, should be completely barred from such actions. In other words, life and survival come before the demands of a union.
24. We feel that there are proper subjects that can be promoted by government seed money under careful supervision, and, eventually, partial or full withdrawal by the government from the arena. Space is an example.
25. Social problems must be addressed properly, including abortion, and same sex marriage. Perhaps a national referendum is in order to ascertain whether the majority of voters favor or disfavor these issues, with legislative action to follow in accord with the wishes of the voters.
26. It is unfortunate that we do not have a free press or a free media. The ideal of the media being a major counter-balance to ensure effective government has been largely destroyed by a virtually complete bias on their part in favor of Leftist positions and Leftist candidates. This is an extremely unhealthy situation for our republic.
April 18, 2011
Labels: Conservatism, Constitution, Fiscal Responsibility, Flat Tax, National Debt, Natural Law, Natural Rights, Will of the People
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Progressive Taxation
Ending the Curse of Tax Socialism
I recently came across this article from James Dorn of the Cato Institute. The essential position he has taken on ending tax socialism is an outstanding clarification of the tax trap we are currently in, and will undoubtedly be far further into in the near term. I include the beginning and ending here, but the entire piece is worth the effort to read:
James A. Dorn is vice president for academic affairs at the Cato Institute.
This article appeared on cato.org on September 13, 1996. Read it here!
"It's time to expose the pretense of morality that is inherent in progressive taxation and to end the system of tax socialism that has eroded economic and personal liberties in the United States. Progressive income taxation should be abolished and replaced with a flat-rate tax on income or consumption -- not just to enhance efficiency but to protect our rights to life, liberty and property.
In 1848 Marx and Engels proposed that progressive taxation be used "to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeois, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state." Although communism has failed, the idea of progressive taxation, as a means of achieving "social justice," remains ingrained in the modern liberal psyche.
(…)
If we let constitutional principles be eroded by majority rule, in the name of social justice, then both freedom and true justice will be lost. Progressive taxation is not a virtue but a vice. It presumes that the property rights of the wealthy are not as sacred as the property rights of the poor and that the values of the majority are superior to the rights of the minority.
Those who support progressive taxation pretend to be on the moral high ground but, in fact, they have no ground to stand on. Envy, not justice, is at the root of the argument for discriminatory taxation. That is why those who most strongly advocate progressive taxation are in favor of the welfare state. "Law is the bond of civil society, and justice is equality under the law," wrote Cicero. If we are to restore civil society and move from tax socialism to tax justice, we need to abolish progressive taxation, institute a fair flat tax and limit the size of government. Otherwise, class warfare and welfare will prevail."
This position on our current tax system and the need for change to a flat tax I can heartily endorse.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Unfair Taxation
Fundamental reform of our tax system is urgently needed!
We the people pay the taxes that fund the government. Corporations do not pay taxes. They collect taxes embedded in their prices from consumers and turn the money over to the government. Thus, if you raise corporate tax levels, it is the individual that pays for the raises. The idea of taxing corporations instead of individuals, thus giving people the benefit of "free" tax money from business, is erroneous (Source: Dr. Milton Friedman, to the Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform, March 31, 2005.).
The sole purpose of taxation should be to provide revenue for the operation of the government. There should be no "redistribution of wealth" function added to our tax policy, as that is pure Marxism-- a totally discredited economic and political philosophy. We have allowed this redistributionist idea to be implemented in our nation because of the penetration of liberal socialist ideas into the body politic and our legislatures. It gives unwarranted power to those in the legislature that control tax policy. The idea of redistributionism is clearly rooted in envy--envy of the Haves by the Have-nots. What a subjective way to make national policy! The progressive tax code is simply theft by the government of the rightful property of an individual--his earnings. It is theft by that amount over and above a fair percentage share per person.
The tax code is so distorted now that the top 20% of earners pay 85% of the income taxes, while 40% of the population pay either nothing at all or actually receive money! (Source: data from the Congressional Budget Office, 2005.). There is a significant possibility that the new administration will make an attempt next year to raise upper quintile individual and corporate taxes by large amounts to further their social aims, such as new entitlements, while ignoring our gigantic deficits and broken current entitlement systems. Such shortsighted tax policies are neither ethical, democratic, nor conducive to economic growth and job creation, and will send our nation along the path of leveling and increasing misery for all. We witnessed this in the Soviet Union for over 75 years. We Americans, however, should not rob the well-to-do Peter to help pay the poor and unfortunate Paul (before he hits his stride and outearns most of us!).
My vote goes for the Fair Tax approach (see www.fairtax.org), which has been demonstrated in multiple nations, including several former USSR states, to be far more attractive for all economically. Even a Flat Tax would be far preferable to the ethical morass we now have, so long as we don't end up with both a Progressive and a Flat or Fair Tax! To sort this out will require an extensive national education program and debate, followed eventually by a Constitutional Amendment. The sooner, the better!
Labels: Fair Tax, Flat Tax, Taxes
