15% flat tax. Done. No CPA expense, no tax lawyers, and it would only take 5 minutes for individuals and businesses to do their taxes. School vouchers. Parents could take whatever they're paying in taxes, and use it to pay tuition to send their kids to a school of their choice. Cutting Government Fat. Cut back on government spending, programs, and workers by 50%. Forget debating what stays and goes. Just cut, cut, cut. That's a starter recipe for getting the United States back on its feet again. Reward efficiency, punish layered buearacracy, and end the insanity in the United States that disincentives hard-working, intelligent-thinking, entrepreneurial individuals and institutions. Feel free to add your comments about how to improve the terrible system that is weighing the U.S. people and economy down.
all true. the problem is the paul krugmans of the world who think anybody who makes more than $200,000 ought to be in a concentration camp. I wouldn't be surprised to see that clown use this banking crisis and the government involvement as proof that the 'market is a failure' and thats why we dont need vouchers
It would be 15% of any form of gross income. So, if one made 100k in any given year, no matter the source (wages, capital gains, interest income), they'd pay a maximum of 15,000 in taxes. Real property taxes on homes and businesses is something I did not address, but hopefully someone will. They are a major source of government waste, and could be a major boon to the economy if they were cut substantially, and that money was returned to property owners. Two example (and I respect firefighters) - where I live, they build all these really, really expensive fire stations, probably 4 miles apart, on average. These stations probably cost about 5 to 8 million dollars each to build, not to mention the cost of buying the firetrucks and paying the firefighters. I don't see that many fires each year in the city or surrounding cities where I live. Schools - the elementary schools are now about 40,000 square feet, and may cost 30 to 40 million to build, and the high schools are about 200,000 square feet, and probably cost about 65 to 80 million to build. Is this really necessary? Do we have to have so many, lavish fire stations and schools? In Japan, the elementary schools are very, very old, the students clean the buildings and do all the janitorial work, and the average Japanese 8th grader is more competent in math than most college freshman students in the US. The key to better education is intense instruction, discipline, and better textbooks and teachers (and parental discipline) - not prettier, larger buildings.
15% fat tax...America would explode in FI and domestic Investment. Will it happen? Not a chance in hell
Actually, under most flat tax proposals I've read about, they would exempt the first $40k or so. Everyone under that pays ZERO. Steve Forbes has a brilliant, well thought out plan. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/congress/forbes_flat_tax.html However, I do agree- our govt would never enact something like this. After spending the day listening to these congressional hearings, I am convinced that we are sending mediocre people to represent us in congress. They would never have the foresight to push something like this through