Comments on: Many Americans don’t pay income tax. Is this a bad thing?

By: Jerome Bigge

Jerome Bigge — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 04:53:29 +0000

The money collected via withholding all ends up in the same place, the US Treasury. The payroll tax isn’t “stored” somewhere waiting for the person to reach the age for Social Security and Medicare. The government actually spends the money and deposits an IOU with Social Security and Medicare in the form of a Treasury note. And while the Treasury note has “value” (in the legal sense), in order to convert it to dollar requires that the people of the future pay taxes to cover it. The problem with this is that US population growth is slowing and there has been very little actual economic growth raising the incomes of most Americans once you allow for inflation. This is also a problem with stocks and bonds, as both require someone to purchase them when you sell these to finance your retirement. In theory there should be enough economic growth to cover these, but what if there is another Great Depression? Just a thought to be considered…

By: Michael South

Michael South — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 22:51:29 +0000

Also, I wanted to add that this applies to more than one liberty-oriented objective. It would be great to have, essentially, an open border, for example. However, when letting people in also obligates the rest of us to pay for their medical care and retirement etc etc etc it actually ends up giving us less liberty. Stuff like this is not just clear cut–the situation is muddied by existing anti-liberty laws. Even RomneyCare, which required everyone to buy insurance, was, in part, motivated by the fact that the federal government was forcing everyone in Massachusetts to pay for the health care of everyone that went to the emergency room for anything, and the desire was to keep that from being a burden on the people that were being forced to pay for it.

A short description of this might be “bad, liberty-destroying law begets bad, liberty-destroying law”.

By: LKZ

LKZ — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 15:10:19 +0000

Yes, more people NOT paying taxes is, on the surface, the direction we want to go in. BUT the current cause for those not paying income tax is where the real problem lies. As stated in the article this cause is government dependence for one’s very livlihood. When that cause is eradicated, then zero taxation for all will be a wonderful and right goal. A difficult task, indeed, yet one candidate Ron Paul (exclusively) is prepared to take on as POTUS.

Shrink the government, shrink the income tax.

By: Michael South

Michael South — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 08:36:28 +0000

There is a legitimate reason to want to “broaden the base” as they say, *given that we are not in a republic, but a democracy*. Sure, theoretically it shouldn’t be possible for 51% of people to take away the rights of 49%, because theoretically, we have a republic. That is not the case in practice though. And when “anything the mobs vote for” can become law, then it does matter if there is a tax on income that only 49% of the people pay, because that 51% has no (directly visible) financial incentive to stop voting for more taxes and there is no way to stop them because they are a majority and in a non-republic democracy that is all that matters. In fact, this is the *only* argument I’ve ever heard advanced for “broadening” (maybe that’s just because I’m listening for it selectively? Dunno.)

To restore some sense of a republic there should be a law that says anything you want to impose on person A gets imposed on you as well–at least it would give people a direct reason to stop voting for things that increase taxes.