11/8/2018
The two most expensive purchases normally made in most families around the world are homes in which to live and transportation vehicles in which to leave and safely return to where we live. In our country, we can “buy” at fair market value, a home or land on which to build a home. When we start a family it is paramount that we seek permanent shelter for them. Our market system has built a nomadic sort of buy and sell, buy and sell, while we move from place to place to satisfy our needs.
You’ll notice there are quotation marks around the word “buy” above. All we who make a purchase of land or home do so in good faith believing in the shelter provided and that we have the integrity and the fortitude to pay for everything we need. But, then come taxes. Even in a low real estate tax state such as where I live, there are taxes on real estate. If one does not pay the taxes, the state decides he no longer can “have” the property he “purchased.” So, did he really purchase it? No, he didn’t. It’s like blackmail. Once you pay a blackmailer, you will always pay the blackmailer. And, once you pay out a huge sum of money for a home, you must keep on paying the blackmailer for the home, every year.
So very glib writers, experts who know how to write words to explain the justification for taxes devise the deception to the gullible. Make the whole society believe the taxes are “fair.” OK, OK, I know upon which thin ice I tread! My purpose is to remind all who will ever read this to remember the first lines of the paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence: “When in the course of human events,” …and “We hold these truths to be self evident…” and “Such is the sufferance of these colonies…”
As I mentioned above I live in a very low real estate tax state, especially appreciative of the exemption status generally applied to older people. But every county is not like ours. Some parts of the state are not a lot different than places like Texas, where real estate taxes are through the roof!
What shall be done? Live with it? How shall our government raise the revenue to finance its burdens? Ahh, we have reached the crux of the issue. Why have we the people, who “in the course of human events” once revolted over taxes, why now do we live under the tyranny of taxation again without recourse? Who “burdened” the government? If we go back to 1910 and examine the country’s finances, we would not have any of today’s taxes except the tariff and specialty taxes which always had an end. We also had very few paid politicians, none on lifetime pensions equal to or greater than their workaday salaries.
You say, well today we have these roads/bridges/parks, etc. Today we have huge policing units of all kinds, fire brigades, etc., for which all these also deserve retirements and pay till they die. You say, we’re a rich nation and we must all pay our fair share?
OK. Let’s do that. Let’s all pay 10% of what we make, let’s all be honest in our method of payment, let’s not have tax police known as the IRS. Can we the people trust we the people to do that? I think I do not have to write the answer down.
The only fair tax is a tax on what we spend (and it will have cheaters devising new ways to get around it.) But it is the only way anything is “fair” about taxing. So, 10% it is, on everything, for everyone. One more thing. No government agency can spend one dime they do not have in hand. That, my friends will work.
Oh, we can’t go that far? Can’t get that done? The people will not put up with what they must go through? Well, then, we live with what we’ve become. And so it goes.
This morning, I awoke singing “Sheltered In The Arms of God” —written by Jimmy Davis and Dottie Rambo. Others wrote versions and the original poem was by Hillary Scott, I think. Perhaps my sheltered position is what caused the above writing, I don’t know. But I just watched the fiasco of our election process and the billions of dollars spent on getting or failing to get elected is rather sickening—they sought this power to spend the people’s money as if it were a bottomless pit. Sometimes I just get fed up. (And I’m a very positive minded man.)
Thanks for reading, the Elder
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