While I complain about the high taxes we have to pay I also believe that taxes are necessary for a free society. The Constitution gave the national government certain duties and tasks that it is required to perform and also gives them taxing authority to pay for it. Anything the Congress attempts beyond those costs or powers are excessive taxes and powers and so unconstitutional. It should be only State and local taxes that pays for roads, fire, police, and other public services that the people allow them to do. I also think that user fees should be used as much as possible such as turning over the Interstate Highway System to the States and making them into self supporting toll roads. Tax reform and a return to the Constitution needs to be taken seriously if we are to keep the republic our founding fathers gave us. Remember, it was taxes that was the root cause of the American Revolution against the British.On this website I have written a constitutional amendment that starts the return of political power back to the States and the people by repealing the income tax, returning the selection of Senators to the States, term limits for congress, and other amendments that gave power to the federal government. Of course amendments like this will never become law or amendments unless an overwhelming people want it because the political parties will never bring it up.
As I have wrote again and again socialism and capitalism, freedom and oppression, can not exist in the same place at the same time. One or the other will have to go either by an overwhelming majority vote of the people or by revolution. Secession may be the only peaceful way for these two systems to co-exist.
Posted 14 July 2002
SOMETIMES it's easy for people to forget the disconnect between policy and results, or between the laws passed in Congress and the people they will affect. I've done my best to be keenly aware of these connections by coming home from Washington and spending time in Oklahoma every weekend, speaking with constituents and listening to their concerns. It keeps me grounded and lets me talk to people who will actually be affected by the laws we pass in Congress.
So I can see how it would be easy for The Oklahoman to discount the importance of the farm bill in the editorial ("Bloated Boondoggle; New Farm Bill Spirals Out of Control," May 7) in which it called the legislation "bad policy." It's easy to look only at the bottom line and dismiss the farm bill's benefits.
If the newspaper's editorial board had been with us in the Agriculture Committee, where we spent more than two years crafting the legislation, based on the results of almost 50 hearings from more than 350 experts from across the political spectrum, it might have a different perspective.
The goal of U.S. farm policy has always been to provide the safest and most affordable food supply for American consumers. Statistics show this policy has worked. Over the last 80 years, the percentage of annual income Americans spend on food has gone down steadily, from more than 30 percent in 1930 to just 11 percent today. And we're the envy of the world as food providers, as Americans spend a lower percentage of their annual income on food than most other countries, including Japan, Germany and Britain. Some would like to reverse that trend, so that we are as dependent on foreign food as we are on foreign oil. That's a barrel I'd rather not see us put over.
Who would benefit if we didn't pass this legislation? Would the Main Street businessman benefit, who sells his goods and services to the farm family? What about the senior citizen when she has to purchase a $12 loaf of bread, or maybe faces an empty shelf at the store? Who doesn't benefit from the cleaner water as a result of the conservation programs? And if your home is destroyed from a flood because we didn't reinforce the 50-year-old earthen dam upstream from you, 2,000 of which are in Oklahoma, would you be better off?
We've worked to create the best possible safety net for our agriculture sector in this bill. This bill meets the needs of agriculture producers and consumers alike. I'd encourage The Oklahoman's editorial writers to spend more time meeting with the people who read the paper. If you do, you'll be amazed at what you'll learn.
Lucas, R-Cheyenne, represents the 6th District in the House of Representatives.
My Reply. I hardly ever write to or about DemocRATs over this sort of article because I expect this kind of crap from them. When a Republican does it I am all over him. This is a reply I sent to the Daily Oklahoman about the above piece and also e-mailed to Lucas:
The question I want to ask Mr. Lucas in reply to his "Point Of View" piece on May 12 is where in the Constitution or its amendments does the Congress have the power to subsidize and regulate Agriculture or indeed any private business or enterprise? Sure we may have lower prices at the supermarket but to get those we also have to pay increased income taxes to support the subsidies for those lower prices. And if you do the research, most of these handouts go to corporations and not the family farms that advocates claims they are trying to help.
He asks, "Who would benefit if we didn't pass this legislation?" I and every other taxpayers would benefit more by NOT passing it by decreasing somewhat the 40 to 45% of our money that goes to all taxes, federal, state, local, and sales. It is really getting to the point that when it comes to pork barrel and special interests financing that steal MY money out of MY pocket that there is no difference between Democrats and Republicans when they try to purchase votes.
I have a question for Jerry T who wrote in "Your Views" on November 16, 2001 to complain about corporations getting tax breaks and rebates from Congress.
Question: Jerry, how does a corporation or indeed any business get their income?
Answer: By selling their goods and services to consumers.
Even a public high school student can figure that one out. From that gross income a business firm must pay all expenses associated with the cost of doing business, such things as salaries, raw materials, tools, utilities, insurance, and taxes.
Yes Jerry, taxes.
Just like any other expense business firms simply pass on the tax burden to you in the form of higher prices for their goods and services. So, Jerry, if you think about it, business firms don't pay taxes, you pay it for them when you make a purchase. Corporations just pass the tax along from your pocket to Uncle Sam's pocket.
Therefore does it not make better economic sense for Congress to simply eliminate all business income taxes? Your purchase price for goods and services will be lower because not only do you pay a business firm's tax but the salaries of tax lawyers and accountants who keeps track of this stuff.
So Jerry, which way do you think is better? Indirectly paying even more taxes and the people who track it or prefer to see lower prices and higher profits in your 401K or other retirement/investment portfolio? You wrote that we need to get more money into the hands of everyday people. Can you think of a better or more efficient way to do this than not to take indirect income tax money away from consumers in the first place?
Posted 17 Nov 2001
A dirty little secret is that the Social Security law as written authorizes the Congress to divert any surplus into the general fund and be spent without restrictions. One of the myths of Social Security is that we all have individual "trust accounts" where the money we pay is duly deposited every payday. In exchange for this, the government puts IOUs into so called "saving account" that the government is not obligated to pay off. Social Security was not created as a sole retirement fund but a way to create more jobs during the Great Depression. The idea was that if the government can some how give older people just enough money to tip the balance for them to leave the work force, those vacated jobs would be available to younger workers. To avoid government costs, it was set up as a direct payment program, the current workers support the retired ones and all expenses to administer the program.
This is a classic pyramid or Ponzi scheme. Just like any other illegal pyramid or Ponzi scheme the first payers in the program reaps the windfall, getting much more back than they paid in and workers near the bottom are left holding the bag.. Through the years, all recipients has generally received more than they pay on, but that difference has decreased as active workers have to pay more and more Social Security taxes as the worker pool decreases and the retired workers have been living longer and longer.
It was not much of a burden when the payoff was 33 workers to one retiree. The ratio is now getting to two workers supporting one retiree. But Social Security is still self supporting because there is still more money coming in than being paid in benefits. The problem facing the Social Security is that between 2013 and 2020, depending on whose projections you believe, the supply and demand curve will finally reach the break-even point. That is when the amount that current workers pay exactly equal the benefits of the retirees plus administration expenses. From that break-even point, the demand of retirees will start to out strip the supply of active workers, causing a deficient. Allowing so called "free prescriptions" for seniors will move that break-even point up by years.
So to "save" Social Security some hard and unpopular choices have to be made, either cut benefits or increase Social Security taxes. Another option is to, for the first time; divert non-Social Security tax revenue.
Gradual privatization of Social Security that works like a 401K retirement savings plan will be the only thing to save it for future and current workers and should eventually be eliminated when the baby boom hump dies off. If entitlements are held at current levels, future generation will face tax rates of 80% + just to support them. That is not counting other spending such as the armed forces. I simply do not see future workers standing for that, no matter how much left wing indoctrination they get in the public schools.
Most counties of the world that copied the American Social Security system has tried this approach with great success. It is interesting that when DemocRATs had control of the White House and Congress many party members supported privatization. Now that George W is president and he suggests that, the DemocRATs are up in arms. I have come to the conclusion that the DemocRATs will allow the Social Security system to go to the dogs, indeed the entire country, before they would support Bush, if ever, on any federal program.
Minimum wage is just one of the many socialist policies that President Franklin Roosevelt had burdened this country with. It has become more of a political football than really helping any workers and needs to be abolished:
I am writing in reply to DDA in the Your Views in the May 17 Sunday Oklahoman titled A Living Wage Please . Your opening statement, "During the current economic boom, employers complain of being unable to obtain workers for minimum-wage jobs." To me that is good news, it says that the capitalist system is working and employees are being paid more than the minimum wage. Employers who refuse to pay more than minimum wage are simply not going to get employees. That is known as supply and demand.
First order of business, who is going to decide what a living wage is? Is the government going to set up a Living Wage Agency, and spend millions of dollars to define what a living wage is and how much that wage will be? Second, how much should we set the minimum wage for? Seven dollars a hour? Ten dollars? Twenty dollars? What the heck, lets make it fifty dollars and see how many jobs are left. You said that minimum wage does not decrease the number of jobs, but how many new jobs were never created in the first place because of the minimum wage? When you raise the cost of doing business, something else has to be cut to stay competitive. Raising the cost of wages means that a business firm cannot expand and create new jobs because the higher cost of labor makes the expansion economically unfeasible.
Minimum wage is just a starting wage anyway, very few people are paid minimum wage in most parts of the country. Studies show that most people who start on minimum wage is usually earning more after about six months on the job. If our economic system takes advantage of the minimum wage earner, then why are they getting raises and why are there not many more minimum wage earners? The business news is full of stories where employees who make much more than minimum wage are caught up in layoffs and downsizing. I really think if any person is earning nothing but minimum wage during most of their working life, it is their own fault and not the economic system. These employees simply are not doing anything to better their lot in life by getting more education or taking advantage of employment opportunities that come their way.
I want to the see the complete elimination of minimum wage and let the market set wages. I would also like to see most government regulations repealed and tort reform that protects business firms from stupid lawsuits we all pay for that are based only in getting something for nothing. I also want to see more people take advantage of what this country offers in education and make their own opportunities, not make excuses for their own failures and shortcomings and depend on the government to do it for them.
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