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A flat tax. One where everyone pays the same percentage on their earned and unearned incomes.
No tax breaks for the rich, no loopholes, no writeoffs, just a flat percentage tax rate for all americans.
Why? Because that would be fair.
Okay, based on my response to the Sgt, you and I are on the same page. But let me play devil's advocate here for a bit.
A Constitutional expectation of the federal government is that it will promote the general welfare. The general welfare could be seen as promoting the traditional family, promoting charity, promoting home ownership, promoting new business startups and business expansion, etc.
So long as this is applied evenly across the board without respect for the standing of any citizen, is there no room even in a flat tax for the government to promote such activity?
Ah but see promoting the general welfare is not the same as Providing for it . And that very line of the constitution goes on to say Provide the General Defense....if the founders inteded the government to provide us with "Welfare" they would have written provide instead of promote .
Ok ok that was semantics lets put that aside and get back to the devils advocate and my response.
That still leaves all the room the government has now to help promote the general welfare. They will still have the same amount of tax money coming in and they can still fund such programs with that money.
I was going to go on and on with examples but i'll stop here and save those for future responses .
I like good debate.
Ahem. Thwap with a ostrich feather. I did NOT use the term PROVIDE.
I don't think I have on this thread, but on several other threads I have stated unequivocably that I believe any effective tax reform will require a Constitutional amendment prohibiting the Federal government from disbursing any tax monies collected as charity of any kind or that benefits any targeted group. In other words, we have to prohibit elected federal leaders from any ability to use our money to buy votes.
But my 'devil's advocate' argument does not involve charity. It does involve a tax break for ANYBODY without respect for race, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic standing, etc. who gets married, buys a home, employs other people, gives to charitable causes, etc. That would promote the general welfare by encouraging such activities and making it more possible for people to engage in such activities.
Do you (or anybody) have any rebuttal on why that would not fall within the scope and intent of promoting the general welfare?