Tomorrowism Blog

So little talent, so much pretension.

Saturday, June 17th

"Fair" Tax


Last Tuesday, I went to a Townhall.com Meetup.org function at the Lincoln Restaurant on N. Lincoln in Chicago. We meet there every month. This topic was Neal Boortz's favorite tax plan, the Fair Tax.

I went in with an open mind. I left thinking that the arguments presented were short on style and substance.

The fair tax eliminates all taxes except for taxes new goods and services. It would have the government issue "prebates", checks dependent on family size to bring people up to the poverty level.

The fair tax web site lists as the main benefits:


The FairTax was created by first asking the American people what they wanted out of a tax system, and then having a team of respected economists design a tax system that met those demands. The FairTax replaces the income tax and all other federal taxes with a national consumption tax. The FairTax is levied only once, at the point of purchase on new goods and services. The simplicity of the FairTax frees Americans from our current overwhelming tax code and unshackles the U.S. economy.

The FairTax:

* Abolishes the IRS
* Closes all tax loopholes and brings fairness to taxation
* Maintains our current Social Security and Medicare benefits
* Brings transparency and accountability to tax policy
* Allows American products to compete fairly
* Reimburses the tax on purchases of basic necessities
* Enables retirees to keep their entire pension
* Enables workers to keep their entire paycheck

At the onset, this is unfair to those that save and invest. Such people basically produce today and consume tomorrow. If we tax producers today and consumers tomorrow, we double tax savers. The prebate cannot simultaneously subsidize the poor and reimburse savers.

Worse, though, will be the unintended consequences of tax avoidance. If one pays taxes on new goods but not used, people will game the system to avoid selling items as new.

  • Foreigners will start exporting used goods here. Cars will have been used for a few miles. TVs will have been watched for a few minutes. Clothes will have been worn once.
  • Craftsmen will use their items before selling them. Woodworkers will use bookshelves once before selling them. Carpenters, plumbers, and electricians will build homes and live there for a day before selling them.
  • Someone else noted that since items for businesses are not taxed, many items which are to be used at home will be declared for use at work. I'd add that businesses could buy new items and sell them used.

With all these loopholes, I do not see the fair tax as workable.

I also found the Fair Tax supporters' style wanting. Specifically, they insulted those that disagreed with them as ignorant or lazy.
Alan on 06.17.06 @ 23:06 CT [link]


Monday, August 8th

Offensive College Mascot


The NCAA recently banned offensive mascots, etc, from NCAA post season tournaments. (That's an oversimplification; follow the link for details.) Most read that to mean the end of Indian mascots.

I do have some Indian blood in me; enough to give me a nice tan in the summer. My father had twice as much Indian blood as me; when he grew up, he knew that "No dogs or Indians" signs applied to him and his family. So while I don't know enough Indian culture to run a casino, I do have empathy for real Americans. I do not like to see them (us?) further abused.

If the Illini Nation wishes that Illinois change their mascot, fine, good bye "Chief". But I object to hearing from a bunch of pigmentally impaired do gooders that claim to speak for the Illini. At the same time, I would prefer that the University do a better job of exalting the Illini. Why should one be proud to be an Illini? Because they're ducky dancers?

But if I had to pick an offensive mascot, it would not be an American (um, "Indian") mascot. It would be Oklahoma's Sooners. Some background.

In 1838, the Cherokees were forced from the Southeast United States on the Trail of Tears. Other tribes joined the Cherokee in the Indian Territory. In forcing natives East, those with forked tongues promised to let Indians stay in their new lands forever.

Naturally, as white folks moved West, they decided to steal those Indian lands too. White folks lined up on the Oklahoma border on April, 22, 1989, for their chance to "legally" steal Indian lands. But they weren't the first White folks to steal Oklahome from they previously displaced Indians. Other White filks corssed into Oklahoma early and laid claim to land there. They got there sooner. Thus, they were called Soonres. Sooners, you see, are double criminals; they cheated white people in their efforts to steal Indian lands.

To have a major college honor these criminals is truly offensive.
Alan on 08.08.05 @ 23:50 CT [link]


Saturday, May 21st

URL Blacklisting


(While I don't know that this is an original idea, I haven't seen it in any of my infrequent wanderings on the web.)

During my current wandering (which is from a friend's house), I mistyped the URL for Alan on 05.21.05 @ 21:37 CT [link]

======================================================

Cool Site


Via Jane Galt: Secret Confessions with artistic expressions.
Alan on 05.21.05 @ 20:58 CT [link]


Friday, April 29th

Reality Check


From Think Again:


I believe in looking reality straight in the eye and denying it. - Garrison Keillor


Alan on 04.29.05 @ 20:39 CT [link]

======================================================

Poor, relative to whom?


From Jane Galt:


But, of course, we can always find new things to worry about. By the standards of, say, 1920, every single one of us, even welfare mothers, is rich. Every single one of us has enough food that we never need to go to bed with our stomachs crying out to be filled. Every single one of us has running water--running hot water--and bathtubs and indoor toilets to put the water into. We have stoves that do not need to be carefully tended to keep the fire going. We have central heat. We have cars or public transportation to take us wherever we want to go for a trivial sum. Almost every poor person in America has a color television, offering free entertainment 24 hours a day, and most of them can afford to buy cable to go along with it. We are so wealthy that even a welfare mother can afford to let her children stay in school until they graduate--indeed, so wealthy that a once-unbiquitous dramatic scene, the child vowing to drop out of school in order to help the family out, has entirely dropped out of the literary canon. The average middle class man of 1920 would have regarded all but the most hopelessly drug addled or mentally ill street people as wealthy beyond dreams of avarice.


Alan on 04.29.05 @ 20:01 CT [link]


Friday, March 11th

No More Comments; ta for now


Friggin comment spamming jerks. Comments are closed for now, which doesn't really matter since
I haven't been posting lately anyhow.

Someday, I'll restart.

BTW, glad to see all is going so well in the Middle East. While there is more work to be done, I'm glad I never backed down from saying that we were right to invade Iraq. Having a jerk like Saddam controlling all that black gold was bad for the world.
Alan on 03.11.05 @ 19:54 CT [link]


Wednesday, November 17th

Fallujah: The Beginning of the End


Prompted by a Command Post piece.

Reminds me of that whack-a-mole game from roadside carnivals. There are nine holes on a 3/2' (/12 meter) board; mole pops up and a the player is supposed to whack the mole on the head with a hammer.

These terrorists keep popping up wherever. I have every confidence that they are being hammered down pretty quickly. I wonder if our friends the Brits get to play this time?

This also reminds me of a EEE 105 lecture (ecology was one of the E's). If a farmer is to cut down a hedgerow between fields, the time to do it is in winter, not summer. In summer, the hedgerow is home to all sorts of plant eating bugs; cutting the hedgerow in summer actually increases crop loss, as the newly homeless bugs find other plants to nest in.

We just took down one heck of a hedgerow in Fallujah. Now we're getting the bugs in their new nesting sites. This is good.
Alan on 11.17.04 @ 12:43 CT [link]


Tuesday, November 2nd

Zogby trends: no help.


I recall hearing on Sean Hannity's radio show (from Zogby, I nopw believe) that trands matter; clear trends emerge in the 10 days leading to the election.

So I formatted Zogby's tracking polls to highlight trends in the 10 states Zogby is tracking.

Few trends have emerged:

StateEVs"Trend"
CO9Bumpy Bush trend
FL27Bumpy Kerry trend; late Bush push
IA7Bumpy Kerry trend
MI17Kerry to start and end; Bush in the middle
MN10Kerry to start and end; Bush in the middle
NM5All Bush until 10/31; late Kerry trend
NV5All Bush
OH20Bush to start and end; Kerry in the middle
PA21All Kerry
WI10Bush trend


These uncertain trends make it too close to call. Plus, this is Zogby only. That said, things do not look good for Bush.
Alan on 11.02.04 @ 00:25 CT [link]



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