The Big Picture
I’m going to get into some of the reasons why Americans should be supporting a flat tax; but first I’d like to explain the big picture. The flat tax is a focal point which makes more sense when you step back to see the entire landscape first.
On one end of the spectrum we have no government at all, this is anarchy. On the other end of the spectrum we have total government, totalitarian government. I like to look at it as a seesaw of power with ‘we the people’ on one end and government on the other. To protect freedom, ‘we the people’ should always weigh more than our government.
Mayor Bloomberg’s regulation of sugary drinks is accepted by those who believe ‘we the people’ need to go on a diet while we allow government’s weight to be thrown around “for the common good”. So long as these people agree with the reasoning for such regulations, they not only accept them… they cheer them on; but government’s weight isn’t as easily seen most of the time. Loose clothing, in the form of legal documents we can’t understand (think Obamacare), hides the enormous weight of regulations our government uses against us every day. How fat will we allow government to become before WE put GOVERNMENT on a diet? Keep in mind that there is a point where it’s too late. We’ve seen it all throughout history. It’s much easier to put government on a diet now than it is to attempt liposuction later.
Think about the movie, Hunger Games. We certainly aren’t at that point, but there are already some very alarming similarities. That movie is a great example of the government and its cronies using their weight against the starving people they control. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve heard people say that movie was about rich vs. poor. It’s very sad that the demagoguery of financial success has led to such a blind society… so much so that even a movie, which exaggerates the power of a crony capitalist government, isn’t understood by those watching it with their own eyes.
Focus On The Flat Tax
The flat tax diet is one of the most simple ways to keep government’s weight down. Because government uses our tax code to reward their cronies and manipulate behavior in general, the system should be revised. The tax code is like Obamacare, few people understand it so anything can be stuffed into it and ‘we the people’ can’t as easily object to it as we can Bloomberg’s diet.
Liberals don’t care what or how they take from ‘we the people’ to give to government and they generally do it through their most successful demagoguery campaigns. The death tax is a good example of this. They have convinced a good number of Americans that inherited money is unfair to those who don’t have it, so taxing those who do is acceptable. They defend working class people, which is what I consider farmers to be, but they have no problem taking that farm with the death tax. The movie, Secretariat, is a great example of what the death tax does. The flat tax would eliminate the death tax.
Crony capitalism, at least within the tax code, would be eliminated with a flat tax. This is what Hunger Games was about.
Definition of ‘Crony Capitalism’
A description of capitalist society as being based on the close relationships between businessmen and the state. Instead of success being determined by a free market and the rule of law, the success of a business is dependent on the favoritism that is shown to it by the ruling government in the form of tax breaks, government grants and other incentives.
Investopedia explains ‘Crony Capitalism’
Both socialists and capitalists have been at odds with each other over assigning blame to the opposite group for the rise of crony capitalism. Socialists believe that crony capitalism is the inevitable result of pure capitalism. This belief is supported by their claims that people in power, whether business or government, look to stay in power and the only way to do this is to create networks between government and business that support each other.
On the other hand, capitalists believe that crony capitalism arises from the need of socialist governments to control the state. This requires businesses to operate closely with the government to achieve the greatest success.
If socialists believe that the only way for businesses to “stay in power” is to create networks with government, they shouldn’t be against the destruction of such networks and therefore should support things like a flat tax.
The flat tax even solves the issue of gay marriage. Government uses our tax code to reward and/or penalize behavior such as marriage, but the flat tax doesn’t allow the use of our tax code for social engineering.
See page 58 of Senator Rand Paul’s, A Platform to Revitalize America, for his explanation of a flat tax.
