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Trump Aims at Tax Reform After GOP Doesn’t Fulfill Its Promise to Repeal Obamacare

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Published on: September 26, 2017

The GOP has utterly failed in repealing Obamacare, something that that Party and President Donald Trump promised the American people they would do.

It’s not a surprise to any of us who have called this action for years because we know they really want to keep Obamacare and rebrand it with their name.

However, neither Congress nor Trump actually supported a real repeal bill like the two that were introduced earlier this year.  They supported keeping the majority of Obamacare in place.

The Graham-Cassidy bill, another fake Obamacare repeal bill, is pretty much dead.  It’s not going anywhere.

As a result, President Trump is turning his focus to tax reform.  Now, as with anything, when people start talking about reform in government, watch out.

Trump’s weekly address to the nation focused on tax reform.

“The American Family has always been the heart of our great nation,” Trump said.  “In homes across this country, families teach their children to work hard, to love each other, and to make the most of their talents in pursuit of their dreams. Yet for too long, American families have been hurt by Washington’s policies that put the interests of other countries before the interests of our country.”

“That is why, in my Administration, we are pursuing tax cuts and reform that create jobs in America, for American workers – not foreign workers, but American workers,” he added.

Now, look.  Trump is a businessman.  I think he does understand the issue that lower taxes is best for Americans.

I would argue that no taxes are best for Americans and that we could follow the bulk of what is in the tax code which doesn’t affect hardly any working American today.  In fact, it mostly targets foreigners who work here.  For more on that, I recommend reading this which points to the tax code, Supreme Court rulings, and the actual law.

President Trump laid out four principles that are a part of his tax reform agenda.

  • Make the tax code simple and fair;
  • Cut taxes for the middle class;
  • Making our tax system more attractive for investment and job creation;
  • Bring back trillions of dollars in wealth parked overseas so that it can be invested in our country

According to Trump, making the tax code simple and fair is “so that families can spend more time with their children, and less time wading through pages of paperwork.”

“A staggering ninety-four percent of families use professional help to do their taxes – and that’s not fair, that’s not right,” he said.  “That’s why under our plan, ninety-five percent of Americans will be able to file their tax return on a single page without keeping receipts, tracking paperwork, or filling out extra schedules.”

Paperwork is the least of concerns for most Americans.  A lot is done online now with simple question and answer.  However, I ask you, how did our founding fathers, who revolted against a 2-3% tax fund the central government?

They stuck to Constitutional spending, and that spending was largely supported with tariffs.  Thomas Eddlem writes at The New American:

Prior to ratification of the 16th (income tax) Amendment in February 1913, the federal government managed its few constitutional responsibilities without an income tax, except during the Civil War period. During peacetime, it did so largely — or even entirely — on import taxes called “tariffs.” Congress could afford to run the federal government on tariffs alone because federal responsibilities did not include welfare programs, agricultural subsidies, or social insurance programs like Social Security or Medicare. After the Civil War, tariff revenues sometimes suffered under a protectionist policy ushered in by the Republican Party that supplemented federal income via excises on alcohol, tobacco, and inheritances. But before the war, the need for tariff revenue to finance the federal government generally kept the tariff at reasonable levels. During wartime throughout early American history, the Founding Fathers were able to raise additional revenue employing a different method of direct taxation authorized by the U.S. Constitution prior to the 16th Amendment. These alternative taxing methods gave the young American nation embarrassing peacetime budget surpluses that several times came close to paying off the national debt.

In one instance, the U.S. government paid off its entire national debt without the existence of an Internal Revenue Service.

By way of contrast, the advent of the income tax prompted some congressmen to note that this tax was designed not principally for revenue — the U.S. government had always had plenty of money from tariffs — but to manipulate the American people and their choices in the market. “The character of the argument which had been made,” Massachusetts Rep. Samuel McCall argued in a speech before the U.S. House of Representatives as Congress debated the 16th Amendment, legalizing the income tax in 1909, “leads me to believe that the chief purpose of the tax is not financial, but social. It is not primarily to raise money for the state, but to regulate the citizen and to regenerate the moral nature of man. The individual citizen will be called on to lay bare the inner-most recesses of his soul in affidavits, and with the aid of the Federal inspector, who will supervise his books and papers and business secrets, he may be made to be good, according the notions of virtue at the moment prevailing in Washington.” McCall’s Massachusetts constituents rewarded the Republican congressman’s efforts by electing him governor several years later.

This has been the legacy of the income tax. While the income tax has produced the type of revenue that has made a massive transfer of wealth from the productive to the unproductive possible, the incentives — through thousands of deductions and tax credits — have manipulated the American people into choices that they wouldn’t have otherwise made in a free market. These manipulations — whether in favor of “green energy” research, “cash for clunker” automobile purchases, or tobacco crop subsidies — have been chosen according to the prevailing virtue in Washington.

Notice that this primarily became a problem during and after Lincoln’s usurpation of the Constitution.

Read the primer and the law to see if you are required to be filing in the first place, and then ask the IRS to point where you are liable in the law or the tax code to file.  They have to answer you by law or their claim is invalid and citizens have actually won in court over such disputes.  Some Americans have to file income taxes by law.  The vast majority do not.

As for the claim about middle class being able to “finally save more for their future,” I ask, why don’t we simply let those people keep all of their money Mr. President?  It is theirs.  They “worked hard” for it, as you so aptly stated.  Why does government think it has a right to the fruits of our labor?

“We want to help families keep more of what they earn – and to be able to afford the costs of raising a family,” he added.  “Our tax code should recognize that the most important investment we can make is in our children.”

No, our tax code should be eliminated so that it cannot be used to manipulate the people.  Reform is a sleight of hand word used to deceive the people into thinking they aren’t being robbed when they clearly are.

Trump said regarding giving America a competitive edge, “Our business tax rate is the highest in the world – pushing jobs to foreign countries. That’s not what we want, that’s not what I’ve been talking about all these years – I’ve been talking about the exact opposite.”

“We need to bring down our tax rate so we can create jobs, wealth, and opportunity right here, in the United States of America, so we can bring our jobs back and bring our businesses back,” he added.  “We want tax reform that puts America First. We want tax reform that makes America great again.”

Then why not seek to abolish the 16th Amendment, the Internal Revenue Service and the tax code when it comes to income taxes on citizens altogether?  If one believes that bringing down tax rates would “create jobs, wealth, and opportunity right here, in the United States of America,” then just think about what total elimination of those rates would do!

I suppose bringing money back in from overseas is one way to get money for the central government, though again, I think if we stuck to constitutional spending and simply used the tariff system and taxed foreigners who worked in the States, which is similar to charging interest to foreigners, but not your countrymen as outlined in the Bible, would suffice to do all the central government needs to do.  But they won’t have any of that because they would lose the ability to manipulate the people.

“We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reform our tax code and pave the way to unprecedented prosperity,” he said.  “By doing what we’re doing, we will see results like you’ve never seen before. It will be the largest tax cut in our country’s history. I am asking members in both parties to come together, to put aside partisan differences, and to pass historic tax reform and tax cuts for the great citizens of our nation. That’s how we will all succeed and thrive together – as one team, one people, and one American Family.”

Well, until the next administration comes along and manipulates the tax code to what they want it to be, right?

Like most of the stuff DC comes up with, the answer is not reform.  It’s abolish what’s causing the problem in the first place.

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