AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

What does it cost, I don't know, the main thing is there just is not enough support for any flat tax, to get the concept to even get to first base. For example, Foxfyre, a solid conservative, already advocates an exemption up to a certain amount of income, then one rate after that, which in my mind is not flat, as that is a graduated tax, no way around it. Thats how we have ended up with the graduations or brackets as they are, people do not support a totally flat tax.

I like the idea of eliminating all corporate taxes, business taxes, just tax individuals. As they say, business does not pay tax, only people do. In theory that is correct because the cost of taxes is passed on to the consumer in the form of higher prices.

But here again, the demagogues would demagogue that proposal to death, by accusing the supporters of supporting big business and the fat cat corporations, as the oil companies that make billions. All of which is ignorance on display about how the economy works.

There are things to be worked out, but the system we have now has how many thousand pages of tax code, ican, and it is so complex that people make a living studying this stuff.

In Germany we have many laws which the normal Burger follows.
I had talked with many American law professors about this.
The guest professors with whom i chatted/talked were not far awy with my views..
If the strict law is not enforced and
law breakers can make the law makers dumbfounded
then the law is toilet paper.

Ramafuchs, where do you get such brilliance? ha ha.

In today's CSM there is an article

Is the Republican Party in peril?
Conservative thinkers and political historians think the GOP could be at the end of its historic 40-year grasp on power.

http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2008/08/30/is-the-republican-party-in-peril/

I leave the article because it iis lengthy but worthy to read.
It had attacted many responses. I picked up 2 which reflects objective views.

19. FredO | 08.31.08

Is the Republican party in peril? Which Republican party? The one of father’s generation? The one that demanded fiscal responsibility, and that demanded that government stay out of our private lives? The one that cooperated with the Democrats to enable of generation of returning soldiers to secure college educations that in turn helped fuel the postwar boom in science and technology? That Republican party expired with the election of Ronald Regan who preached smaller government while quintupling the national debt, who talked tough about beefing up the military to deal with the Soviet threat while he slashed funding for the VA, and wasted our national wealth on impossible star-wars projects. The Republican party of today appears to be possessed of a willful ignorance of science, (especially biology), technology, the cultures of foreign nations, changing economic power in the world, ethics, and just generally of the importance of governing wisely. It has been more zealous in it’s pursuit of bringing down the former democratic president than of bringing in the mastermind behind 9-11. We are at a tipping point here folks. The global economic and environmental frameworks are changing, and I am afraid we don’t have time, money or passion to spare on take-no-prisoners political infighting, and forcing our fellow Americans to adopt our own religious beliefs. I sincerely hope that next generation of Republicans form a base for a more thoughtful, careful, and sane Republican party. We are going to need that kind of Republican party

26. Gaston | 08.31.08

I grew up as a small govt Republican a la Nelson Rockeffer & Gerald Ford. Unfortunately the Republican party has left me & hijacked by extremist, Southern Evangelical Right Demagogues, declaring war on science, immigrants & involve the federal govt in American private lives; the right for a woman to choose or one right to choose a partner to live with. The modern day GOP reflects the narrow minded, intolerant view of the Jerry Flawells, Pat Robertsons, Dr Dobsons, Rush Limbaughs, Ann Coulters, while America is becoming a truly multicultural, multiracial country.
Sorry, to say the GOP deserves its Waterloo.

I grant you that there is currently not enough support for any flat tax, to get the concept to 1st base.

I also grant that that minimal level of support will not develop unless there is a concerted effort to develop it.

I further grant that convincing enough conservatives to participate in such a concerted effort, while not improssible, is unlikely. Getting the typical conservative to risk making a big effort to solve old and persistent serious problems is itself unlikely, when, at the start of that work, they perceive the risk of failure to be high and the chance of success to be low.

I guess I'm an atypical conservative. I for one will continue trying to get that concerted effort started.


Regardless of what past and present judges have decided, logic demands that for an impost to be uniform, it must be idential for each kind of thing/person/dollar against which the impost is applied.

I admire your devotion to principle, but I believe some minimal progressivity is necessary and possibly even desirable, if kept to a very minimal level so as not to destroy or greatly hinder the need and motivation of all people to be productive.

If you compare society to a family, some children are not as ambitious, or as obedient, or as on time, or as productive, as others, and they don't all receive the same rewards for their effort, but they all still receive some benefits by virtue of being members of the family. I don't know if that is a good analogy or not.

2008
Married tax payers filing jointly--taxable income
marginal tax rate ..... over ........... but not over
10% ........................... 000,000 ...... 016,050
15% ........................... 016,050 ...... 065,100
25% ........................... 065,100 ...... 131,450
28% ........................... 131,450 ...... 200,300
33% ........................... 200,300 ...... 357,700
35% ........................... 357,700 .........

BUT NEXT SUPPOSE THE FEDS DO THIS:

2008 to 2012
Married tax payers filing jointly--taxable income
marginal tax rate ..... over ........... but not over
10% ........................... 000,000 ...... 016,050
15% ........................... 016,050 ...... 065,100
25% ........................... 065,100 ...... 131,450
28% ........................... 131,450 ...... 200,300
33% ........................... 200,300 ...... 357,700
35% ........................... 357,700 .........

2012 to 2020
ALL tax payers--taxable income
marginal tax rate ..... over ........... but not over
1% ........................... 000,000 ...... 010,000
2% ........................... 010,000 ...... 020,000
4% ........................... 020,000 ...... 040,000
8% ........................... 040,000 ...... 080,000
16% .......................... 080,000 ...... 160,000
32% ......................... 160,000 .........

2020 to 2028
ALL tax payers--taxable income
marginal tax rate ..... over ........... but not over
1% ........................... 000,000 ...... 020,000
4% ........................... 020,000 ...... 040,000
8% ........................... 040,000 ...... 080,000
12% .......................... 080,000 ...... 160,000
16% .......................... 160,000 .........


2028 to 2032
ALL tax payers--taxable income
marginal tax rate ..... over ........... but not over
1% ........................... 000,000 ...... 020,000
8% ........................... 020,000 ...... 040,000
16% .......................... 040,000 .........

2032to 2040
ALL tax payers--taxable income
marginal tax rate ..... over ........... but not over
1% ........................... 000,000 ...... 020,000
8% ........................... 020,000 ...... 040,000
16% .......................... 040,000 .........

2040 to 2048
ALL tax payers--taxable income
marginal tax rate ..... over ........... but not over
1% ........................... 000,000 ...... 040,000
16% .......................... 040,000 .........

But all family members are expected to meet some set of minimum obligations unless they are totally incapacitated.

I think all society members should be expected to meet some set of minimum obligations unless they are totally incompacitated.

In that regard, I am convinced that everyone capable of earning income can afford to pay the same amount of taxes per dollar earned that everyone else pays.

2012
Gross Income -- an individual's total income paid by all sources (business profits not paid to individuals are excluded).
marginal tax rate ..... over .................
16% .......................... 000,000 .........

If sum of the incomes ..................... Then sum of USA's
of all individuals in ......................... federal tax revenue
the USA were .................................. would be
(trillions of dollars) ......................... (trillions of dollars)

20 ................................................... 3.20
19 ................................................... 3.04
18 ................................................... 2.88
17 ................................................... 2.72
16 ................................................... 2.56
15 ................................................... 2.40

One small problem ican, the sum of the adjusted incomes of all individual tax payers was only 8 trillion in 2006. That would mean your tax would only take in 1.28 trillion. Well short of what the government presently spends.

http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/250.html

Well here's a novel idea. How about the idea that the government is too big and costs far too much?

Not a novel idea at all but one that is often parroted by people with no budgetary knowledge.

Here is the question I ask of everyone that says it.
Please show us how you would cut it. Be specific and provide numbers.

Here is the US budget so you can easily cut the programs you think should go away.
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy09/pdf/hist.pdf



It's easy to say we need to cut it. It's harder to provide any reasonable cuts that will balance the budget. All cuts have side effects on the economy or people's lives in general.

Thats too novel, Foxfyre.

Sad thing though, most expenditures are not discretionary, they are entitlements tied to inflation figures, etc., so there is no possible way to fix this problem without growing ourselves out of it, which is what the Republican Congress did in the 90's. Maybe we need a few more newcomers to Washington that are willing to make the hard decisions and reform the place, drain the swamp, as Fred Thompson mentioned? Maybe a few more Palins?

Like I pointed out to Fox okie. Her statement isn't novel at all.

Actually proposing a working budget with cuts using real numbers would be novel.

Recently this thread appears to be focused on tax reform, and that is indeed one of the many problems the country seems desperately in need of. Tax reform is a sub-set of our government's need to raise revenue to pay for its operation. This isn't a new problem. The old Articles of Confederation foundered largely on the same issue, and the Federalist Hamilton's fixes worked reasonably well for over a hundred years. For over a hundred years the Federal Government was largely financed without the need to impose any income taxes. A strong central Federal government focused almost exclusively on the narrow responsibilities granted it under the Constitution did not required the same sort of revenue that we have need of today. Let me be emphatic. I do not advocate a return to a Federal Government so small and constrained that it would have to operate off of import/export duties and borrowing. My point is only that the nation's demands on, and expectations of, the Federal Government are far beyond anything the Founders anticipated.

Either the Federal Government's costs must be cut, as we Conservatives have been calling for, or taxes must be raised as the Democrats promise if they come to power. Raising taxes isn't a good enticement to voters, so the Democrats have taken a different tack; redistribute the wealth. Take from those have and give it, in one form or another, to those who have little or nothing. That course stifles individual initiative, discourages business from investing in a profitable future, and rewards sloth.

What can be cut from the Federal Budget, so that the income from personal, property and business taxation will meet the nation's needs, or how can income be raised without destroying the very foundations of our economic system built upon individuals each pursuing their own happiness and interests? We can not, and should not ever reduce the budget required to provide for the nation's security, and military. If we must borrow against future revenues, let it only be to pay for the cost of waging wars to secure the nation. Discretionary spending, after paying for our military necessities is limited and while waste still exists there, it is relatively small compared to the amounts that are devoted to non-discretionary items.

Social Security and MediCare are both huge programs touching on almost every American family. They are both expensive programs, and are riddled with waste and rife with opportunities for fraud and sharp dealing. Both are continually on the verge of bankruptcy, and both need fixing. So why do these, and other expensive Federal programs continue to hemorage tax dollars? Citizens are dependent on the benefits, even as they know and complain about how they are managed. Presidential candidates from both Parties have been promising reform for half a century, yet nothing NOTHING has been done to reform these institutions. Why? The answer is simple, it is the Congress that set up these systems, and only Congress can change them. Reform is risky, and the ideological divide between Parties over what direction change should take results time after time in no change at all. Our system prevents either party from dictating to the other, and that prevents the sort of radical reform needed in MediCare, Social Security, and how taxes are raised.

That, thank God, isn't likely to change. But, it also means that we are unlikely to see meaningful reform of the tax system, or any of the discretionary programs that make running the Federal Government so expensive. If we can't institute the reforms needed to fix the problems, then the best to be hoped for is some mitigation to limit the cost of Government and prevent taxation schemes that undercut the foundations of our system.

Ronald Regan had it right in his efforts to cut the number of bureaucrats whose salaries and perks make up a significant amount of the budget in all sectors. There are too many and their cost is too high. I'm hoping that the McCain-Palin administration will greatly curtail the bureaucratic burden the tax payers of this country have to support. The Executive, in my view, must not encourage costly new domestic programs unless those programs lead to greater national security and independence on foreign resources. I want lean Federal budgets, and vetoes wherever possible on pork barrel and earmarked programs. Congress should not be able to bring the Federal Government to a standstill by insisting that military appropriations be studded with riders meant only to benefit a Congressman and his constituency. I believe that the President needs a line-item veto power to reign in Congressional excess and hidden treasures for special interests.

To accomplish these and other Conservative goals, I think we need more than just a GOP President, we need a GOP dominated Congress again... but one that is more willing to begin reforms that are long over due. The Democrats promise everything to everyone, and insist that no one of any importance to them will have to pay for it. Those who strive for financial success and security, who risk their all on a business, aren't important to the Left.

http://www.bea.gov/national/nipaweb/TableView.asp?SelectedTable=170&Freq=Qtr&FirstYear=2006&LastYear=2008
Corporate Profits by Industry
http://www.bea.gov/national/nipaweb/TableView.asp?SelectedTable=170&Freq=Qtr&FirstYear=2006&LastYear=2008
National Income Without Capital Consumption Adjustment by Industry

Given something unforseen, Obama looks likely to win this election. In addition, seats will be lost in both houses. If that happens, then it is worth pondering the consequences within and for the conservative movement.

First up (after the obligatory savaging of the media and the winner) will be, I expect, a surge of vitriol against McCain. This will be led by Coulter, Hannity, Limbaugh and every dog and pony out of the religious right segment. That's all fairly predictable. Less predictable will be their responses as regards Palin (even while the saner portions of the movement will acknowledge her significant role in the loss of the WH) because of the manner in which they've supported her and because she has been held up as representative of core conservatism.

Second, and this will occur over a longer period of time, will be an increasing fractiousness among the component elements of the movement. Nothing unusual here in a general sense (losing parties/movements inevitably head this way) but I think this particular case will not be typical - it will be seriously incriminatory and divisive. Many parts of the movement are exclusivist to the point of paranoia and they will direct a good portion of their angers and hatreds towards 'conservatives' who aren't really 'conservatives'.

Third, all the various people and entities which earn their paychecks from marketing the conservative line of dogma and propaganda will continue to do so. Kristol, Fox, talk radio, particular papers and publishing houses, the conservative-funded think tanks, etc will stay on the job (embroiled in the above battles for a while) and they'll then set to the task of diminishing positive notions in the electorate of Obama and Democrat governance.

Fourth, they'll have a tougher time than before for the same reasons that their attempts to manipulate public opinion are neutered presently - the movement's ideas are unpopular. And that's not a matter of whim. It is now a matter of the electorate's experiences with conservatism at the helm.

Welcome back Bernie. LTNS. (Or is this still Lola in disguise?)

Your predictions re the aftermath of the election may or may not be accurate. I rather think you are perhaps exaggerating the consequences of a Republican loss in November.

I don't predict a surge of vitriol against McCain though the parties you enumerated may be less supportive of his ideas. It would be more a return to the former levels of vitriol against McCain. And probably not even that because I think all named will still believe McCain to be a better choice than Clinton or Obama. All are still unafraid to openly criticize him on points on which they believe he is wrong. And they do.

I trust the American public, at least those still capable of independent thought, will come to see how unfair it is to judge Sarah Palin on a basis far more demanding than has been required of any other vice presidential candidate ever. I think--at least I hope--she will emerge unscathed and as the force to be reckoned with that I believe her to be.

I am totally unaware of any 'movement' however. Perhaps you could elaborate a bit more on what the 'movement' is?

Those persons and publications that describe and defend conservative principles will almost certainly continue to do so as they always have. They will be seen as Satan's tools by the left wing extremists as they always have been seen. And they will continue to be appreciated by those still capable of independent though who would otherwise be smothered in leftwing dogma and biased interpretation of the news.

I'm not sure a great deal of the public can define conservatism or conservative ideas. Certainly they haven't seen them accurately defined or implemented for some time now. As for the influence of those with a forum to further conservative ideas, I trust they will continue to provide a necessary balance and will keep conservatism alive whether or not people can accurate describe what it is. That is all the influence they have ever had or ever aspired to have actually.

If conservative spokespersons were sufficient to counter opposing ideology and influence people against the avalanche of leftwing bias to which the American public is inundated every day, Bill Clinton would never have been elected--twice. George W. Bush would not have had a second term, and Barack Obama would not be current standard bearer for the Democratic Party.

blatham, one thing you are forgetting. You are apparently assuming that Obama will be wildly successful, but you are ignoring the possibility, even liklihood of a huge failure of his presidency, if elected, thus driving the pendulum of public opinion back to the conservative end of things. Of course, any failure will be obfuscated by the friendly press, and his success in various areas will be wildly exaggerated, but nevetheless people are not going to be totally blind to what happens.