Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Lookin' at Huck?

Mike Huckabee's cute, in that weird-puppet-in-your-grandma's-attic kinda way. I like a lot of his policies, but I can't in good conscience vote for someone who supports the killing of innocents, including in a "war on terror." (I can't use that term without gagging a little bit.) That said, there's one more major thing I can't stand about the guy, and that's the fact that he looooooves the taxes. I saw a video of him begging the Arkansas legislature to pass any taxes, he'd gladly sign off on them. He's raised taxes more times during his 10 years in office than Bill Clinton did during his 12 years in office. He blamed the Democrats for raising taxes when he was the one that proposed them.

That and much more here.

His tax plan (eliminate the IRS, simplify the tax law by just getting rid of the whole thing and establishing a sales tax) would balloon sales taxes completely out of control and create a huge black market. If there's an exorbitant sales tax on everything, you can bet your sweet bippy that I'll be buying everything I possibly can from some dude on the corner. I'd be growing my own vegetables and putting Ace in old shirts instead of diapers. Otherwise, his tax plan is a cute idea. You'll notice he doesn't tout his plans for eliminating the things that have caused our taxes to go out of control in the first place... He ain't got none.

My boy Ron Paul has never, in TWENTY YEARS in Congress, voted to raise taxes. His nickname is Dr. No, because every time a new tax comes up, he says no to it. He has a stated plan for eliminating several useless government departments. He is against stupid wars.

Ron Paul is the bomb. If you haven't looked him up yet, you've got to be a little slow.

5 comments:

JesusThroughMary said...

The national retail sales tax would not cause prices to increase on anything. The fact is that federal taxes, totaling over the 23% that is being proposed, are already included in current prices. They're just hidden as corporate income tax, federal FICA taxes on employee wages, and federal unemployment taxes. In other words, say a Wii costs $400. At least $100 of that cost is taxes that have been paid by everyone down the supply chain. Since all those taxes would go away, the retailer would be able to still charge $400, pay the $100 in sales tax out of the $400, and the customer wouldn't know the difference. Except that he's not paying any income tax, Social Security or Medicare. Sales tax is by its nature voluntary - if you want to buy used items and not pay the tax, you can do it. (An item would only be taxed at its initial retail sale, not at resale.) The "Fair Tax" is revenue-neutral (which is a problem because government keeps too much money in the first place - the rate should be lower), but it certainly wouldn't raise the price of anything.

Webmaster said...

Thanks so much for the Huckabee link. You've inspired me:

http://paleoplace.blogspot.com/2007/12/huckabee-love-taxes.html

(hope that link comes through...)
This is my friend Joe's blog, but I'm a contributor; that's my blog post. If this link didn't work, go to my profile page and click on the paleoplace blog, and it's slugged "Huckabee LOVE$ the taxes."

God help us if that man wins the race.

mayberry said...

I for one cannot get behind someone who loves to raise taxes, BUT, eliminating the wage tax is a good idea. I've never thought it was fair. When you're taxing what people buy, you get EVERYBODY. Yes, a black market could be a problem, but at least the illegals and government welfare leeches (no, not everyone on welfare is a leech) will be paying a share like everybody else?

From the Doghouse said...

I wish you'd quit beating around the bush and let us know who it is exactly you're supporting!

Unknown said...

I don't think replacing all federal taxes with a Goliath-sized sales may or may not raise the price of the final good or service. It may end up lowering the price of some things depending on how regulated and taxed it was before, under the old regime. However, whichever way prices TRY to move will still be subject to the law of supply and demand.

The biggest problems with a national sales tax are three fold:

1. The federal government taxing us in a whole new (unconstitutional) way.
2. It does nothing to curb federal spending. In fact it's usually touted as "revenue neutral", as if lowering the amount of loot that Washington squeezes from us is a bad thing.
3. It's a huge incentive for black markets, and the criminal violence that tends to accompany it.