The GOP wants to snoop in your tax returns, and make them public if they wish

why are you asking for a link? Do you watch the news? havn't you seen republicans come out and bash it on CNN, Fox and CNBC? apparently not.


http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1121congress-taxreturns21.html

"This is a serious situation," said Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska. "Neither of us were aware that this had been inserted in this bill," he said, referring to himself and House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bill Young, R-Fla.

Questioned sharply by fellow Republicans as well as Democrats, Stevens pleaded with the Senate to approve the overall spending bill. "

 

Well, the key to a flat rate tax is that there would be no loop holes for anyone. Hence a 10% rate, which has been postulated by some, would result in a significant tax decrease for my wife.

But another big part of the flat rate tax is that the COST of administering the entire process of tax COLLECTION would be reduced to the point that there would be a huge savings to the government in comparison to the present system.

While there have been many knee-jerk reactions to the idea of a flat rate tax, the ultimate reason that it has not been enacted long ago is that there are just too many tax lawyers, accountants, government workers, etc., who would be out of a job to ever actually adopt the plan the way it should be done. Politicians just are not willing to accept the heat for putting a lot of their buddies out of work. Which is probably a good reason to do it in itself.

 

How do you interpret this sentence to mean that the Republicans didn't put it in there? I guarantee that the IRS wasn't responsible for the privision, because it would have meant surrendering some of their power to outsiders. The Democrats certainly didn't do it, and even if they had wanted to, their influence in Congress is considerably less than their numbers would suggest. Istook has taken to saying that some low level staff member did it, as if congressional staffers did this sort of thing entirely on their own.

This provision is consistent with some of Istook's past projects, and in the lock-step Republican Congress of today, I find it extremely unlikely that such a provision would have been added to this bill with out at least implied authorization from the leadership.

 

This type of insertion happens all the time. With 3,000+ plus pages lower level staffers handle tons of stuff that is never reviewed by those ultimately responsible. The fact the IRS was responsible is nothing new. Those folks have stepped over the line repeatedly. Just remember back to some of the things that have happened in the past 4-8 years and the "reforms" that were promised.

No. This is not a partisan issue. It is a structural problem with the way budgets are handled in this country. Most, if not all, of the pork that gets in would NEVER happen if it were debated in public. This is a problem that needs to be fixed but I'm not holding my breath.

However unlikely you may think it is that this got in without Republican approval, it has been widely reported on multiple media by representatives of both parties that this WAS something that was added by underlings without knowledge of "leadership." It just so happens that a couple of Democrats picked this up and ran with it before they realized it was just another of those 11th hour additions that so plague the process in general.

 

Oh goodie, we can get the annual deficit up to trillion!!!

There'd be savings, but the kind of people who think it would be "huge" are the kind of people pols snooker because once a number gets over a few million, those people can't comprehend it. Sorta like the Neanderthals in Clan of the Cave Bear.

No, the reason is because in order for it to be revenue neutral, it would f*** most Americans up the a**, completely unlubed.

 

Actually the key to making it revenue neutral is the closing of loopholes and a reduction of govenment costs. Both of those things have to be done at the same time. Unfortunately, because of the magnitude of that task, I don't think it will ever be accomplished. Instead we will get tiny bits of things being done under the guise of "tax reform" that will be of little benefit.

In the interim it would have to be revenue positive to pay off the defict. However, there are too many politicians in today's world that believe that positive cash flow is a reason to increase spending and that's reason it won't work.

This IS a system that is broken and desparately needs to be fixed but never will.

 

Why do you think there will be damage to lower classes?

If the 10% rate that Forbes proposed were adopted, it would LOWER the Federal rate for those paying taxes, and those below the poverty level don't pay taxes anyway.

 

standard legislative snafu ... happens all the time ... I did like MattHat's VAT conspiracy-trojan horse attack on IRS theory, though. Piece of genius, that.

 

Looks like you're wrong, you utter failure at getting carded. It just means the GOP won't own up to it. Like the Lilly Pharmaceutical gift in the Homeland Security bill a couple of years ago. Or the Reep scum who voted to keep DeLay in power, but won't admit it.

 

And what is this bullshi'ite about the flat tax? You think there won't be an IRS with a flat tax? You think there won't be audits and investigations?

"How much money did you make last year, Mr. Gates?"

"Um, a dollar."

"Okay, you owe us a dime."

"Sweeeet."

This is about an unforgiveable invasion of privacy, and yes, Republicans, you small-government red state libertarians voted for it. Thanks again, dickheads.

 

This could almost become a separate thread but...the beauty of a true single-rate rate tax is two-part.

1. Everyone pays 10%. No deductions. No loopholes.

2. If you are below the poverty line you pay nothing.

Now, you must recognize that with no loopholes, there is a big gain in revenue there. For those who think the ultra rich (including Mr. Forbes) should pay more, this will certainly do that.

And yes, there would have to be some investigative and enforcement but that exists now. There is no change there. No increase in Big Brother so Richard Cranium will not have to be involved here. (where did that come from?)

The savings come about as the result of a tremendous reduction in the number of government employees needed to process and monitor all the different levels, deductions, etc. Also the cost to payers would be reduced at the private level because computing your own taxes would be easy. No need for tax specialists whose sole job it is to calculate what you owe with today's ultra-complicated rate schedules.

The problem with it all is that no one can accept the fact that something so simple can actually work. My own accountant, who would lose 70% of his work load if this passed, is in favor of it.

 

Where the hell are you getting this 10% from???? The Cato Institute?

And I'll say the same thing about this I've said before. All you right wing nutjob class warriors, if the flat tax is such a great idea, how come you never see anyone propose it for states and localities?

I'll tell ya why.

BECAUSE IT AIN'T A GREAT IDEA. IT'S JUST A WAY TO F*** THE POOR.

I don't wanna be Ned Beatty. Apparently, you guys do. Or you wanna be the guy riding Ned Beatty. Whatever. I thought you people voted for George Bush because he was gonna keep us SAFE FROM sodomy. G****** flip floppers.

Seriously, every damn one of you should just have a big cup of shut the f*** up until you propose a flat tax for every level of gvt. Let's have a flat tax for your damn homeowners association. To the barricades!!!

 

The 10% number was proposed long before the Cato Institute was ever formed. It has long been a number that was widely held as sufficient to fund the cost of government, including state and locals, if you do away with all the loopholes. Isn't that what liberals have been preaching all these years? Close the loopholes? Make the ultra-rich pay?

You give those at the poverty level a pass. How does that hurt the poor? They get the benefit of the services but pay nothing. If you want to see how that works, just come to California and see how illegal immigrants get free health care and pay nothing. Same deal but on a larger, and legal, scale.

What is so hard to understand about that? How does any of this make me a nutjob? This is what you have been wanting all along.

 

Another thing people seem to miss from this story is the ability to read the fine print and point out the pork and hold the lawmakers accountable for their actions.

I wonder who found this wording as much as who put it there in the first place. If we are serious about our nation, the spending, we need to keep an eye on them and not think they all do this, except for my rep/senator.

I think people need to get smart and come to realise, as this past election showed, that bills contain so much crap that a vote against a proposal doesn't mean a vote against the headline on the bill. What this shows is the ability for the people to divorce any proposal from some add-on that stinks. If I were in the Congress, the first thing I'd propose is an end to the add-ons and vote on everything, big or small, or in the very least create categories for proposals where things have to match. No more school funding bill with a "hidden" new roads slush fund.

Then again, by adding the pork, more votes will come along to help pass things. It is how things are done, but it doesn't have to be this way.

 

Totally agree.

The problem being that nobody really cares too much about what their Rep does, but what the other guy does. As soon as people hold their Reps accountable, regardless of party, things will start to clean up.

I find it rather funny every year the number of people that complain about congress...pork spending, long holidays, voting records, etc. However, most of these people get elected again and again. Sure some people care, but it is a small number and a much smaller number of people care enough to take the guy/gal of their district if they are a member of their party to task. We care more about the bitching than we do about anything.

I don't think you or I or many people will be holding our breaths on that. Part is that a good deal of the voting block are idiots, Repubs and Dems both. The other part of the problem is the media. I have seen this hit the news, but I haven't seen anybody doing much of an effort to figure who put it in there.
Who snuck this in should be as much an issue as why it was in there, especially considering that nobody wants to fess up. Frist calls it the 'Istook amendment' then when the ******** starts hitting the fan...say oppps I was wrong sorry bout that. Why did he call it that to begin with, why are supposedly low level staffers, who nobody seems to know, sneaking in this kind of stuff.

I remember reading someplace that this had been proposed awhile back when the Congress was dem controlled and nobody really ran with it. Not trying to start a partisan bitch slapping contest, just throwing that out. I agree completely though.

 

The big problem with holding representatives accountable is the way district boundaries have been re-drawn - gerrymandering as my old HS civics teacher called it. The boundaries are set in such a way that the predominant party in the district is going to be so dominant that no opponent can possibly win. Therefore the incumbent knows they have to rape the preacher's wife to get thrown out of office...and they often behave like that.

 

Those can change, too.

If not every ten years, we can force a change of the rules. You'd think that the US professional sports leagues ran the govt, too. Teams move and old traditional rivalries needed to be kept alive and we found Arizona in the East and New Orleans in the West!

It is so simple that only one thing is obviously at work. Our representatives want to maintain this two-party system because either way, they (collective) own and run the nation. Who said bi-partisanship was dead?

 

So (non-elected) staff aides can enter language into a massive spending bill without their boss knowing about it? That's comforting.

 

Again, very comforting.

This is not a fact. It is a supposition.

 

So we're also going to eliminate all payroll taxes, sales taxes, etc.?

That's a relief.

Unless you eliminate all other taxes the system will be regressive.

 

dj43, you live on the West Coast. I think all those states let anyone get any proposition on the ballot.

Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to get the flat tax to be the sole funding mechanism for your state's government. Good luck.

 

That's certainly possible.

Sincerely,

The Hammer