Is Federal Taxation
An Economic Must?
Sunday, September 7, 2008
By Bill Lussenheide
Federal taxation has been so entrenched in our thinking as a necessity, that it is amazing to realize that for a large part of our nation's history, tariffs were used to generate all of the revenue necessary to run the federal government, military and all !
Historically, this tariff ran at only about 20%. Up until 1913, less than just 100 years ago, there was no federal income tax in America.
I ran some numbers ,available online to anyone, from the Federal Budget office. If we had an import tariff at the historical rate of 20%, this would generate revenue of close to $600 Billion dollars for 2008. This amount would have been able to cover the entire Federal budget for 1981, and this same amount would have covered the budget as recently as 1992, if we still kept taxation in place only for Social Security and Medicare.
Imagine the benefits of eliminating Federal taxation. The simplicity of managing ones business, investment decisions and paperwork trails. This alone would likely add a boost of 15% or more to the economy due to streamlining of accounting etc. It would benefit domestic business by making our own manufactured goods more competive price wise, allowing for more employment, and more money staying in our own country.
Many cheap goods coming into America are manufactured in countries like China that do not operate under air pollution standards, labor unions, OSHA, minimum wage laws, prison labor laws etc. Furthermore, China manipulates its currency in a non-Free Market fashion giving it a de facto tariff advantage.
Tariff would help to equalize our competitive disadvantage to countries operating in an unfair business environment such as China, which is able to operate at an advantage not available to our businesses.
Tariff would also act as a brake on government "tax and spending" which has grown at a rate of DOUBLE the inflation rate in the last 25 years alone. Such a continuation of this government growth rate will result in federal taxation taking more than DOUBLE its current outrageous take in yet just another 25 years.
The best part about the use of tariff is that it is 100% Constitutional as far as the original document is concerned. The Founding Fathers had the right idea in regards to this and in limiting government intrusion into the market place, and in limiting the power and scope of government. My position is that this is always a good thing for any people who love freedom, liberty, and limited government.
Bill Lussenheide is a successful businessman and a talk show host on several large California conservative radio stations. He is a candidate for US Congress from California in the 49th district in 2010 under the American Independent Party banner. Bill holds college degrees in Management and in Marketing.
He is married to Terri (Miller)father of three sons, Bill Jr., Brad, and Kyle and is a sermon speaker and lecturer at various Churches and Fellowships. His interests include, the Bible, sports of all kinds, world history, weightlifting, astronomy & numismatics. He is known by his friends as friendly, fun, energetic and the neighborhood champion in playing "Jeopardy" trivia quiz type games.
He is a contributor to the landmark "Total Baseball" the official encyclopedia and statistics book of Major League Baseball. Bill is the Treasurer for Abundant Living Ministries, a humanitarian, fully volunteer charity, that has no paid staff and uses 100% of its contributions for direct aid to the street children of Vinogradov, Ukraine.
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