No to Trade Barriers

[EasyAce]

Protectionism doesn't protect Americans
By John Stossel
http://reason.com/archives/2018/03/07/no-to-trade-barriers

No, President Trump, it's not true that if you tax imported steel, we "will have protection for the first time in a long while."

The opposite is true. If you raise tariffs on steel and aluminum, you punish consumers.

Yes, such tariffs also punish Chinese producers and protect some American businesses and workers, but the tariffs will hurt many more Americans.

They'll hurt every business that makes things from steel or aluminum. They'll hurt most everyone who buys anything. Tariffs are taxes, and they don't just affect inanimate metal objects. They punish people.

Even if China "dumps" products—sells below their manufacturing cost—that just means that China hurts its people and gives us discounts. We win. We get products. All the Chinese get is paper with pictures of American presidents printed on it . . .

. . . Did we learn nothing from what happened when President George W. Bush raised steel tariffs? The trade barriers protected 1,000 jobs.

But they destroyed 200,000 other jobs. Bush wisely withdrew the tariffs . . .

[driftdiver]

We get cheap stuff and destroy our country. It's a win win

[Bigun]

IF We got our own house in order there would be no need for tariffs at all!

http://fairtax.org
 

[EasyAce]

IF We got our own house in order there would be no need for tariffs at all!

http://fairtax.org
 

I prefer a flat tax, if we must have an income tax. Five percent across the board, close all the loopholes. Then sit back and watch
the dollars roll into the treasury.

And anyone who says "the rich" won't pay their "fair share" under a five percent, for-all flat tax, needs to be re-taught simple
arithmetic. Or would someone thinking someone who earned $30,000,000 in a year paying a $1.5 million income tax think that's
not a "fair share?"

Or . . . if we actually could rid ourselves of the income tax (repeal the Sixteenth Amendment), return the tariff to its original
purpose of financing the operation of a properly-construed, small federal government only, and make it unconstitutional once
and forall by way of an amendment to use the tariff for any purpose---including and especially economic policy and restraint of
market and trade---other than toward the operation of proper government.

[Bigun]

I prefer a flat tax, if we must have an income tax. Five percent across the board, close all the loopholes. Then sit back and watch
the dollars roll into the treasury.

And anyone who says "the rich" won't pay their "fair share" under a five percent, for-all flat tax, needs to be re-taught simple
arithmetic. Or would someone thinking someone who earned $30,000,000 in a year paying a $1.5 million income tax think that's
not a "fair share?"

Or . . . if we actually could rid ourselves of the income tax (repeal the Sixteenth Amendment), return the tariff to its original
purpose of financing the operation of a properly-construed, small federal government only, and make it unconstitutional once
and forall by way of an amendment to use the tariff for any purpose---including and especially economic policy and restraint of
market and trade---other than toward the operation of proper government.

Why do you think we MUST have an income tax?  I don't think that at all!  In fact, I'm convinced that getting rid of the Marxist income tax, and it's attendant IRS, is the KEY to restoring our republic!

[EasyAce]

Why do you think we MUST have an income tax?  I don't think that at all!

I don't think we must have it, personally, but we do have it, unfortunately. That's why I said,
"if we must," since enough geniuses thought we absolutely must have the Sixteenth Amendment.
If I'd been there and in position to do so, I'd have voted, "Not just no, but hell no."

But if we're going to be stuck with it, for who knows how long, flatten the income tax to a plain five
percent as I described above.

[Bigun]

I don't think we must have it, personally, but we do have it, unfortunately. That's why I said,
"if we must," since enough geniuses thought we absolutely must have the Sixteenth Amendment.
If I'd been there and in position to do so, I'd have voted, "Not just no, but hell no."

But if we're going to be stuck with it, for who knows how long, flatten the income tax to a plain five
percent as I described above.

We've tried that several times before and it always grew back! We must be rid of it once and for all!  ANYTHING with the word INCOME in it leaves the door wide open for Washington chicanery!

" The socialistic and anti-social character of the income tax is inherent.

Imbedded in the philosophy of the law is the destructive principle, so that once it is in effect the economic and political consequences are inevitable.  The principle of the income tax is the denial of private property.

There is nothing in the Sixteenth Amendment, there is nothing in the principle of the income tax, which puts a limit on the amount the State may demand, and hence the implication is clear that the individual's absolute right of private property is denied.


The theory of republican government, that its powers are derived from the will of the people, is no safeguard against this denial of private property.

Assuming that the Sixteenth Amendment at the time of its enactment did express the will of the people, every one of them, the substance and effect of income taxation was to destroy the will of any subsequent generation for modification or revocation.

It is unlike any other law.  For the denial of the right of private property is in essence the denial of the right of the individual to himself. He is no longer a free person if he is not free to keep and enjoy the products of his labors. --"

 

Excerpted from From Solomon’s Yoke to the Income Tax  by Frank Chodorov

[EasyAce]

We've tried that several times before and it always grew back! We must be rid of it once and for all!  ANYTHING with the word INCOME in it leaves the door wide open for Washington chicanery!

Excerpted from From Solomon’s Yoke to the Income Tax  by Frank Chodorov

Frank Chodorov was a one-of-a-kind essayist. His thinking turned around one fulcrum---all the reasons we should be suspicious of State
activity. He was, of course, a friend and protege of the singular Albert Jay Nock, maybe the most eloquent enemy of State power in
American letters.



But I don't remember that we ever tried a plain flat tax. If we do it again, the chicanery factor might be reduced to its lowest possible term
if, in hand with flattening the income tax (it still boggles me as to why even conservatives and libertarians rarely think or discuss repealing
the Sixteenth Amendment), the IRS were to be abolished, since a flat tax would require none of their actual or alleged services to collect
and the Treasury Department could do the job by itself with little if any additional burden.

[Bigun]

Frank Chodorov was a one-of-a-kind essayist. His thinking turned around one fulcrum---all the reasons we should be suspicious of State
activity.

But I don't remember that we ever tried a plain flat tax. If we do it again, the chicanery factor might be reduced to its lowest possible term
if, in hand with flattening the income tax (it still boggles me as to why even conservatives and libertarians rarely think or discuss repealing
the Sixteenth Amendment), the IRS were to be abolished, since a flat tax would require none of their actual or alleged services to collect
and the Treasury Department could do the job by itself with little if any additional burden.

It was a flat tax to begin with! And has been flattened several times since.  As Karl Marx himself said

“The greatest tool Communism has in our toolbox is the progressive income tax.”

Our founders universally endorsed "taxes on articles of consumption" only and they were entirely right!

And then we have this!

"There are thousands hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root."

 Henry David  Thoreau

[EasyAce]

It was a flat tax to begin with! And has been flattened several times since.  As Karl Marx himself said . . .

I hate to break it to you, but the progressive rate income tax is not a flat income tax. We've been flattened by it, but
the rate isn't flat.

I want the income tax abolished, but if it's not going to be, I want it mandated to be a flat five percent.

[Bigun]

I hate to break it to you, but the progressive rate income tax is not a flat income tax.

I want the income tax abolished, but if it's not going to be, I want it mandated to be a flat five percent.

How about we just get rid of the damned thing entirely and be done with it once and for all!

http://fairtax.org

The bill to do just that is currently languishing in the House Ways and Means Committee!

[EasyAce]

How about we just get rid of the damned thing entirely and be done with it once and for all!

That's what I've been saying. But it isn't going to happen, unfortunately, until someone a) moves to abolish the Sixteenth Amendment and b) prepares
the necessary Constitutional amendment to do so, followed by c) a constitutional convention called strictly to consider that abolition.

http://fairtax.org

The bill to do just that is currently languishing in the House Ways and Means Committee!

They ought to rename that committee the House Tax, Spend, and Disappear Committee. That bill has been kept in that committee's closet how long now?

[Bigun]

That's what I've been saying. But it isn't going to happen, unfortunately, until someone a) moves to abolish the Sixteenth Amendment and b) prepares
the necessary Constitutional amendment to do so, followed by c) a constitutional convention called strictly to consider that abolition.
They ought to rename that committee the House Tax, Spend, and Disappear Committee. That bill has been kept in that committee's closet how long now?

A LONG time!  And there is a reason it has been. They know what I know!  That bill will blow up their play house!

[DB]

The founding fathers would be appalled that we willing submit, every year, all the private details of our lives involving where we earned each dollar passed to us, what we sold, where and how long we live at any particular location, how many children we have, etc...

Not even the Romans who owned its citizens require such things.

[EasyAce]

A LONG time!  And there is a reason it has been. They know what I know!  That bill will blow up their play house!

[Sanguine]

I don't understand how this will help.  We already have over 12,000 tariffs in place.  How will a few more balance the scales?

[EasyAce]

I don't understand how this will help.  We already have over 12,000 tariffs in place.  How will a few more balance the scales?

Obviously those who think more are wise think breaking the scales equals balancing them.