End the Manipulation.

End The Manipulation

Jeffrey Schaben

    Sometimes, I just get tired of it all. It seem as if spamming and mindless reposting has taken over the world. I don’t care about what someone else thinks, about any given topic. I am more interested in what you think. If I want to know how they think, I will follow them. I thought the Tea Party may have been a remedy for this. However, the Tea Party, like anything else is slowly becoming just another marketing tool. Is this because we accept the notion that in the end it is all about mindlessly gathering followers, to manipulate the government to serve our own agenda.

    I have supported the shutdown of the government. Not because I have this illusion that it will stop the implementation of ACA. The ACA is already law and the only way to truly stop it is by removing it piece by piece. The damage done by it’s implementation has already happened. We are like an animal caught in a trap. Any reckless movements may only further damage us. We need to brave the pain assess the damage. Then using all tools available, and our collective minds, extricate ourselves from this trap. I support the shutdown for the hope that the process will revert back to the intended process, formulated by our constitution. Not this abrogation of responsibility by all parties. They have handed off the responsibility of issuing government bonds to the fed. They have given up on any thoughts of a budget, to the status quo of baseline budgeting and continuing resolutions. The only cuts that happened lately, happened in a vacuum of inaction. These meaningless cuts were suppose to cause armageddon. Well, maybe we need a real armageddon so the current prophets in the media can tell the difference between fear mongering and disaster. If I was in congress I would stand up and say. “Yes, Mr. President. We have shut down government because of a budgetary impasse. However, the administrative branch has chosen how and what to shut down. Therefore, you are equally at blame for any pain felt by the American people.” In the end, We The People are only collateral damage. Nothing more, nothing less. Politics is a civilized less barbaric form of war. Real people will get hurt no matter which way this issue is resolved. So, drop the charade that you are working in everyones best interest.

    I use to think that we are overtaxed. However, after writing the book The CUT Tax. All of my subsequent research has pointed to the fact that we are not overtaxed per say. Just the distribution of taxes is heavily burdened on the middle class wage earner. That is because of the manipulation of the tax code for years. When I quit as an owner operator of a truck. My “annual income” did not change that much. only my tax liability.  I may have done less work overall, for the same amount of annual income. However, I lost all them nice deductions of items that were expenses as a small business. In the end, on paper I was making the same amount, However I had more disposable income as a small business. We need an honest discussions on taxation.

    An Author and Talk Show host, Dave Ramsey, has a saying about credit card companies. “If you play with snakes, you're going to get bit.” I feel the same way about the Income Tax Code. If we are only trying to manipulate the tax code, we are going to get bit. There is too much power invested in the current tax code. It needs to be abolished.

    Of the few people that have read my book, the consensus is that first we need to get a control on spending. Part of me agrees. However, if we were to redistribute the tax burden evenly again, then there may be a larger and more influential cry for fiscal responsibility. If I am a company, what do I really care about spending, if I can manipulate my tax burden down through the current tax code, I would be more concerned with losing my tax deductions.

I feel that that tax code must be distributed equally on all individuals and organizations, including the poor. This can be done now if we resolve to do this. If the rate is below 4% on gross. This should not unduly harm the poor. Then if rates do go up this is also hurting the poor, so maybe we should look at spending before raising taxes. Currently, if you divide 2012 GDP(BEA statistics, US Department of Commerce) $64,978 billion into 2012 Federal tax receipts $2,450 billion. You get .0377 or 3.7% These are very conservative numbers. The rate could be a lot less. My unscientific estimate for the tax to deliver a balanced budget is 3.2%