YOU ballance the budget!

[Thurnez Isa]

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Issues/The-Economy/2010/11/10/Tea-Party-Calls-for-Abolishing-the-Fed.aspx

[Requia ☣]

On second thought, we might as well slap a 23% tax on everything.  Inflation continues unabated while wages haven't gone up significantly since Carter was in office, we'll only be speeding up the inevitable.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

On second thought, we might as well slap a 23% tax on everything.  Inflation continues unabated while wages haven't gone up significantly since Carter was in office, we'll only be speeding up the inevitable.

Do you have any kids, Requia?

[Requia ☣]

Would I be suggesting that if I did?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Would I be suggesting that if I did?

Exactly.  While it's fun to have a giggle at the teabaggers getting what they asked for good and hard, it's also worth remembering what the actual consequences are.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

Taxes where I live:

4% state sales tax
1% city sales tax
0% income tax
169% tax on brain cells due to living so close to so many teabaggers.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Taxes where I live:

4% state sales tax
1% city sales tax
0% income tax
169% tax on brain cells due to living so close to so many teabaggers.

Funny part is, I'm willing to guess that most of them don't make enough to actually pay income tax, at year's end.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

Taxes where I live:

4% state sales tax
1% city sales tax
0% income tax
169% tax on brain cells due to living so close to so many teabaggers.

Funny part is, I'm willing to guess that most of them don't make enough to actually pay income tax, at year's end.

Most people pay a federal income tax. I do, but it's small. The average income here is about equal to the average income nationally.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Taxes where I live:

4% state sales tax
1% city sales tax
0% income tax
169% tax on brain cells due to living so close to so many teabaggers.

Funny part is, I'm willing to guess that most of them don't make enough to actually pay income tax, at year's end.

Most people pay a federal income tax. I do, but it's small. The average income here is about equal to the average income nationally.

Then they don't actually pay any tax, other than SSI.  I make a little more than $20K more than the national average, and I don't actually pay any income tax.  Of course, I have kids.  So do most teabaggers.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/03/tea-party-rand-paul-kentucky-senate

Paul has also been an advocate of a flat tax, proposing that income tax be abolished and replaced with a single 23% rate of national sales tax.

There.

[Precious Moments Zalgo]

This thing is kind of cool, but it would be much more useful to me if it could also show the effects of repealing Obamacare, replacing income tax with a 23% National sales tax, and any other tea party proposals that didn't make the list.  Not because I am in favor of any of those things, mind you, but because there seem to be many people out there who think that we can balance the budget while not touching Medicare, Social Security, or Military spending and while cutting taxes further.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

This thing is kind of cool, but it would be much more useful to me if it could also show the effects of repealing Obamacare, replacing income tax with a 23% National sales tax, and any other tea party proposals that didn't make the list.  Not because I am in favor of any of those things, mind you, but because there seem to be many people out there who think that we can balance the budget while not touching Medicare, Social Security, or Military spending and while cutting taxes further.

Reality has a way of correcting these notions.

Once again, I refer to Kiplings The Gods of the Copybook Headings (Public Domain).

AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

[Freeky]

I like that poem.

[Phox]

Too tired to read whole thread in response to national sales tax: I was merely reporting the options I selected that ended up working. I do not actually advocate a national sales tax. Carry on.

[Cain]

I crashed the budget, then sold the entire military to China as mercenaries.  What do I win?

The screams of jingoists, to lull you to sleep at night.

I consider that a victory.  I'm also going to seize the assets of the Fortune 500, sell Wall Street's debt to a dummy corporation based in Costa Rica as part of a deliciously smart shell game which will involve an already doomed and sinking South Pacific microstate assuming the collateral debt of the entire world, and use the profits to distribute hookers and blow to the population at large.