Obama Vs. Mccain

The Beacon Hill Institute if I remember correctly. Research was also done by a few other sources. I'll look them up and post them when I can.




The tax code could be rewritten to less than ten pages. Compared to what we have now.



A cop can walk into a store. If it became a problem a small group could be charged with a task to maintain legality.

Paying 30% extra on every taxable dollar spent isn't that big of a deal. Canada has a 15% sales tax on top of their income tax. They seem to be doing fine.



Even so, if costs are higher in another country (income tax, payroll,etc) then they will seek the area of lowest taxation/cost. Ethics and labor costs are the responsibility of Americans. This isn't a magical cure all for the problems we have. Shit will happen under any system.




Purchasing power doesn't decrease at all. The value of money would remain the same consider that under this system you get all of your money at the same value as the currently 2/3rds. Prices also don't increase since companies are saving money by the reduction in all the hidden taxes that are passed onto you. Prices will come down on most goods. Expensive items like cars may see a price increase.



Hardly complex plus a little regulation is good for any industry.



Under the current system companies pay sales tax on the state level. The federal government never gets a penny from this point anyways. A better question would have been "So aren't the states getting less money?"

I don't see where you came to the idea of tariffs. They won't pay taxes either but, the cost of shipping the goods here will gives us an advantage. The build up of various costs over seas will outweigh the advantage they have under the current system. Simply put, Make jobs expensive here and they will leave. Make jobs cheap here jobs will come.

They'll help more. Cost might go up a little bit but, the chances are equally as good that prices will go down when companies save all the little increments of money.



When politicians fight tooth and nail to keep it from gaining any ground due to their fear they will lose a gigantic vote grabbing option. Even small scale implications would be difficult to come by. Politicians just don't want to give up their control.

I wonder what is going to be Obama's very first words in the white house.

It's not so much that the points you listed didn't have any accuracy, I just found them to explain things in a way that you might find campaign talking points: not untrue, but bending and omitting things to put the most favorable spin on the issue.



I suppose protectionism would be more accurate. Generally, protectionism risks hurting free trade. Other countries may be forced to retaliate in order to stay competitive, which lowers comparative advantage. Though, in the case of tax breaks, it's not quite as bad, but it distorts the market and affects prices.



I was assuming the states also kept their sales taxes, income taxes, whatever they have.

I guess the point is, I haven't seen a good explanation of why the government revenue will stay at the same level while everyone pays less money in taxes. Sometimes, such explanations do exist, such as the powerful concept of comparative advantage for free trade, but until someone gives me a fundamental explanation beyond "saving from waste" and "growing the economy" or provides very compelling data about measurably modeled economic growth and advocates a very conservative approach, I'm suspicious.

You've said it before: there's no such thing as a free lunch. In order for the claims fairtax advocates make to be entirely true, the system would have to somehow create wealth. If people pay less taxes, percentage-wise compared to wealth, but the government has the same tax revenue, then where does the missing money come from? Unless the government has some new revenue source or everyone gains more wealth so that the lower percentage of tax still produces the same revenue, I don't see how it would happen. That's what I'm skeptical about.

I was probably explaining it wrong to begin with. States only have sales tax as well. The entire system removes any tax outside of a retail sales tax.



I'll gather more data (I'm tired now so I'm lazy). In the mean time the best way I can explain it is the expansion of the tax base. You are collecting smaller amounts of taxes from a broader spectrum of areas instead of the narrow income tax.

A good argument for a National Sales tax was that the U.S. Government originally intended to implement it instead of the Income tax but, due to the war the government felt that the income tax would be a quicker method to acquire money since back then you wrote a check to the government every year. They felt that taking the money before we had a chance to see it was a "more efficient manner". Since the first use of the income tax it has become more cluttered and twisted with legalese that the average person at the IRS can't even completely understand the tax code. Mistakes are common where the IRS thinks you owe it more money than you do.

Right on the nail, man. I say this because you kinda reminded me a topic a professor presented when I was at One Day University. I learned a whole lot about presidential outcomes and whatnot. Too bad I don't remember much, lol.

"Now, to get that diamond."



I learned about the pendulum thing from a history professor. It's pretty obvious, too, but I had never thought about it before. The professor was confident that a Democrat would take office, and this was before Obama even arrived on the scene, back when we didn't know who all would be running for president.

The professor was also certain that within our lifetime, Ronald Reagan would be put on money, and not just some stupid golden dollar that no one uses. I hope he ends up being wrong, and I think he does, too, but I doubt he will be.