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Public Statements

Issue Position: Debt & Taxes

Issue Position

Location: Unknown

Debt. The enormous government spending, bailouts and entitlement programs are driving the national debt thru the roof. The future generations will be saddled with this debt. Besides, this kind of spending and borrowing is not sustainable. Soon, the amount of interest on the debt combind with other budgetery costs will exceed the governments ability to service the debt from taxes. The only alternative left will be printing un-backed money or creating it out of thin air. This is legal conterfeiting, and will lead to uncontrolled hyperinflation and the collapse of the currency.

Taxes. The income tax is a punitive tax. It punishes achievers and it stifles growth and prosperity. It is a very intrusive tax, which destroys your right to privacy when the government forces you to disclose your personal and business affairs. The Federal Government has no right to interfere in the private business of individual citizens.

"The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax." Albert Einstein

The premise of income tax, that government has a right to the fruits of your labor, is antithetical to a free society. An income tax implies that a government owns you and allows you to keep a portion of what you make.

"The war against illegal plunder has been fought since the beginning of the world. But how is legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish this law without delay  If such a law is not abolished immediately it will spread, multiply and develop into a system." Frederic Bastiat

Not to many judges would ever dare challenge the constitutionality of a $1+ trillion revenue source. But the constitutionality of the 16th Amendment is clearly questionable, if for no other reason than it is not an apportioned tax (Article 1 Section 2). Even if an income tax is constitutional, certainly a progressive tax cannot be. Article I Section 9 states "No capitation, or other direct, tax shall be laid, unless in proportion to the census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken."

The 16th Amendment was originally billed as a minor imposition on only the wealthiest Americans. But like many government and programs, once established the income tax slowly but inexorably expanded. In its first year Federal income taxes derived half its revenue from John D. Rockefeller and only a few Americans paid it. By 1939, 26 years after its passage, 5% of Americans were required to file an income tax return. Today over 80% are required to file.

For more than half of its history United States did not have an income tax, and it did quite well. There is no need for this confiscatory and intrusive tax.

I am the founder of the To Save Our Economy organization (see www.2saveoureconomy.org). I support the elimination of income tax and the repeal of the 16th Amendment.

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