Tag: taxes

bookmark_borderIncome tax is slavery

Posted on by Marissa

An excellent post:

 

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A post shared by Cam Higby (@camhigby)

This post perfectly explains why income taxes are morally wrong, while tariffs are not. Income tax by its very nature involves taking money directly from people. Tariffs do not. It really is that simple.

Additionally, the point about income tax being slavery is both true and relevant to the statue genocide. The perpetrators of this genocide demand the obliteration of any historical figure who participated in slavery in any way, without realizing that many policies that they themselves actively support also constitute slavery. Slavery does not just mean black people in the South working on plantations. It means forced labor in all its forms, and if you condemn the former without condemning all other forms of slavery just as strongly, that makes you both racist and a hypocrite.

A commentor on the post astutely points out: “When your earnings are taxed, effectively confiscating the fruits of four months’ worth of your hard work, it equates to depriving you of four months of your life. Taxation, under any reasonable definition, can be likened to forced labor.”

bookmark_border“No one elected Elon Musk”

Posted on by Marissa

“No one elected Elon Musk,” Democrats have been pompously stating (see an example here). 

This statement is angering for several reasons:

First of all, it is hypocritical. As various commentators on the post linked above have pointed out, no one elected Kamala Harris, or Bill Gates for the matter, yet Democrats aren’t complaining about them. 

Second, a good argument can be made that people did, indeed, elect Elon Musk. As DC Draino explains in the post linked above, Trump campaigned with Musk and made it clear that Musk would play a role in his government. Trump also campaigned on the idea of cutting wasteful government spending, which is exactly what Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency are doing. A majority of people voted for Trump, knowing that Musk would be part of his administration; therefore people did, arguably, elect Musk.

Third, even if no one elected Elon Musk, so what? Because taxation is morally bad, and government spending requires taxation, government spending is morally bad. Spending should be kept to an absolute minimum in order to keep taxation to an absolute minimum. Therefore, the steps that Musk and DOGE have taken to cut government spending are morally good. And this is true regardless of whether anyone elected Musk, and regardless of whether anyone voted in favor of the things that Musk and DOGE are doing. Moral right and wrong are completely independent of what anyone voted for.

As Robert Kroese points out in a tweet that is quoted in the post linked above, “I didn’t vote for the FBI, ATF, CIA, PBS, NPR, FDA, WHO, UN, IRS, Federal Reserve, EPA or CDC.”

And I didn’t vote for the historical figures that I love to be brutally murdered, or for all people who work at a company with over 100 employees to be forced to undergo a medical procedure.

Yet Democrats did these things anyway.

For them to pompously condemn and shame Musk and Trump for actually doing something good with the government, is reprehensible.

bookmark_borderIn praise of the External Revenue Service

Posted on by Marissa

President-Elect Trump recently announced the creation of the External Revenue Service, a government agency which will collect tariffs, duties, and other revenue due from other countries. I agree with DC Draino; I like this idea. The U.S. government is supposed to serve the American people, not take money from them. If the government needs revenue, it’s more fair and just to get that revenue from foreign countries that make money through trade with the U.S., rather than by obtaining revenue in a way that directly harms American people (e.g. income tax).

 
 
 
 
 
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A post shared by Rogan O’Handley (@dc_draino)

bookmark_borderMassGOP gets it right on re-opening plan

Posted on by Marissa

In my home state of Massachusetts, the state Republican Party has been speaking out against excessive government restrictions to fight the coronavirus. Governor Charlie Baker has begun gradually allowing businesses to open (as if the government had a right to order businesses to close to begin with), and dismayingly but unsurprisingly, numerous politicians have been criticizing even this as too risky.

The Massachusetts Republican Party has come out on the side of individual liberty on this issue. On May 26, they and numerous supporters sent a letter to Gov. Baker urging him to stay the course on re-opening the state. The letter reads in part:

By now, it should be clear: the shutdown of private businesses, large and small, has given the Democratic Party — the party of government overreach — a political boost. This disastrous pandemic has led to unconstitutional decrees being set in stone almost overnight, creating what is unquestionably a dream scenario for the Democrats — stifle independence, entrepreneurship, and personal responsibility, and you create a world dependent upon the state.

We write to you today to urge you to push back, publicly, on the Democrats’ demands to keep Massachusetts shuttered.

We write to you today to remind you that the most regulated businesses in the Commonwealth, our nursing homes, also happen to account for more than 61 percent of all COVID-19-related deaths.

We write to you today to convey the frustrations of small business owners, who have had to padlock their doors while their big-box competitors across the street are allowed to remain open. We write to you today to remind you that the Massachusetts business community lives and breathes on the ambitions, creativity, and dreams of its residents, but will die a painful death if it succumbs to the whims of an unelected bureaucracy. These business owners realize the importance of maintaining a hygienic environment — if the public does not trust them and their products, no amount of government intervention will keep them afloat….

Democrats like to talk about fatalities associated with this virus, but still unknown yet just as tragic are the deaths that will occur due to alcoholism, drug use, and suicide, all of which will be on the increase as long as residents are forced to lock themselves away.
 
Ten weeks of lockdowns have been enough. We’ve flattened the curve, prevented our hospitals from being overwhelmed, and sacrificed our liberties. We’ve watched as a hyper-partisan media has misfired on their forecasts of doom.

The full letter can be read here.

Additionally, the MassGOP issued a statement against a letter by 91 economists calling for – it makes me sick to even write this – new taxes to cover any budget shortfall resulting from the pandemic and associated shutdown. “Incredibly, these economists are calling for an income tax increase at the absolute worst possible time, when mandated business shutdowns have people struggling to make any income at all,” said MassGOP chairman Jim Lyons. I couldn’t have said it any better.

The MassGOP also has a petition to re-open the state, which can be signed here.