Now that the last used book store has disappeared, I’m seen back in Borders and the Barn a lot more often. Even the library with their unfriendly hours can get me some weekdays. Does anyone really know why libraries open at 9:30 in the morning?
Sadly, no bike trip to report. I’m not well enough and I see we’ve gotten another cold spell. Cowboy Mike was over for a few hours to finish the project of transcribing his original music onto paper. He’s wise enough to know recording it may be good enough for copyright, but not for posterity. If it isn’t written down, it has to be a hit first. We all know what the chances of that are. (If that is hard to follow, think of this. If you sent me an MP3 and a score sheet of your music, guess which one I’d go over.)For example, mySpace. It is one of the larger web bandwagons doing the rounds millions of people publishing their profiles and music videos. Some of it is okay but not the music posts. I suppose there is some quality in there if one has a lifetime to start sifting through for it. The majority is very well-made (on computers, that is) and very bad.
So then I put the telly on for Pudding-Tat and heard some politician. Not Ron Paul, but another one addressing the tax issue. It was scary. Where Ron Paul wants to abolish taxes, this yahoo wants to replace income tax with a 23% “comsumption” tax. Trade one evil for another. In a rare political mood, I’m going to go over a few of my thoughts on that in a moment.
First, I spent the afternoon doing something I always wanted. I completely customized a bass line to the old Stones tune “This Could Be The Last Time”. Face it, the Stones bass player sucked. I report complete success. The stage presentation no longer requires a guitar, as I can play the lick on bass and capture the entire rhythm chop with just eight notes, including some parts I play “backwards”.
I’ve often maintained every hit has an essence you can capture on bass, or another instrument. Do that, and the audience knows exactly what you are up to. Where some musicians can only compete by developing a strange fixation on note for note perfection, my method means you don’t even have to pretend to play like the original. Then they want to play the “Zydeco version” but anything except the clone bass line sounds bad to their ears. Want to hear a master get away what I’m describing? Listen to any old Weird Al where he plays accordion.
The consumption tax. The very concept reflects the deadbeat politician’s viewpoint that taxes are even needed. This tax would sting, because under the present system, most people do not pay 23% of their income in taxes. I know my blended rate is around 17% and I could do even better if I claimed the EIC credit. I consume practically nothing except food and gasoline.
Furthermore, a federal consumption tax would not replace other non-income taxes already in the system, so get ready for the $4.00 gallon of gas. Furthermore, consumption taxes must necessarily revert back to the old favoritism and tax breaks, which is precisely what is wrong with the old system. The elderly who have no income would have to be exempted or starve. Soon we’d have underage children buying certain things for adults instead of the other way around.
However, take a closer look at a consumption tax. We’ll soon have another 60,000 pages of tax law. Consumption tax also strongly favors the barter system. This works well for me, but not for most people who, please realize, have nothing whatsoever of value to barter for or with. They would have to relearn their entire way of spending or get soaked through the teeth every place they whip out a credit card.
Like all such taxes, the government will make an estimate of how much they will collect and quickly find out they are getting many times that amount. This is from their underestimating the size of the underground economy. Do you foolishly think will they lower the 23% to get back to their expectations? Do you think all those trained tax agents are going to give up without a fight?
Conclusion. All flat taxes, like a consumption tax, cannot be made to work fairly. A tax should be based on some fair distribution or seek to balance where there is an unfair distribution. Flat taxes hurt people with low incomes and favor those with high incomes. The only tax that will work is a 1% annual tax on transfers of wealth above some very high minimum, like $100,000 per year. You give your son a $500,000 house or inheritance, you pay $5,000 in tax.
Read carefully, I am not proposing to tax wealth, only the transfers of wealth. This means nobody, anywhere, lives well except through his own hard work and entrepreneurial genius in his own lifetime. Of course, this will never happen because the true value of this tax is very hard to understand; you really have to think it through. If you get it in less than a month, you’ve missed the point.
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