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kb5zhh wrote:

C. Ives wrote:

kb5zhh wrote:

Well, the fair tax advocates are rather dishonest on what tax rate they want to propose.  That's why they use language like "The FairTax is revenue neutral at $0.23 out of every retail dollar spent." but no one measures taxes per dollar spent.

How are they being dishonest?  They come right out and say 23% on all new purchases (used vehicles, houses, etc. wouldn't be taxes, as they've already been taxed).

Here's the homepage for (I believe) the national fairtax movement.  Many states have their own sites, too.

I don't completely buy it, but I think it raises some very interesting points.

No.  You didn't see the lie.  If its 23% of the final price that a 30% sales tax.

No lie here:

http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer? … answers#47

Last edited by Steyr AUG (2007-05-04 5:58 pm)

In my province we pay a combined 16% sales tax and that feels like a hell of a lot. I can't imagine paying almost double that.

It would really hurt lower-income people.

I don't think the US Government can go bankrupt. However continued irresponsibility will eventually hurt the economy.

Or at least it would if those economists hadn't found a way to overcome the spinoffs of indebtedness.

Yellowfin wrote:

Sunset laws and line item veto are very badly needed.

If its a bad spending bill, veto the whole thing.  And you're talking like the Republicans weren't in control of Congress AND the White House for 6 years.

The line item veto was given to Clinton, but struck down in judicial review.  To get the line-item veto, the Constitution will need to be amended.  I would imagine that a mandatory sunset clause would need to be codified in an amendment as well.

Yellowfin wrote:

JakeTheTall wrote:

Yellowfin wrote:

Sunset laws and line item veto are very badly needed.

If its a bad spending bill, veto the whole thing.  And you're talking like the Republicans weren't in control of Congress AND the White House for 6 years.

They didn't act like it, no.

The Republicans from 2002 to 2006 were most interested in winning elections and enriching themselves.

How many are in the clink or being investigated ?  Including the Speaker of the House.  And that's with the completely partisan Department of Justice.

The fact that conservatives / rights / Republicans aren't up in arms with the corruption, hunger for power-for-power's sake, and incompetence of the GOP is telling.

Cause, yeah, letting t3h ghays marry is bad.

(pretty sure I've got my outrage++ against the GOP for a good few more years)

It's a problem that doing their job and keeping their job are entirely separate and unrelated activities.

Line item veto isn't about preventing bad laws being passed by themselves. It about addressing the problem of bad legislation being tacked onto bills that are likely to pass. (An example would be like a rider for kickbacks being introduced in bill for public safety enhancements.) No president wants to veto a bill for something like better schools or hospitals just because enough crap has been added to it to make it lose its benefits.

So I guess we should petition for it to be put on a referendum?  That's one way of getting around it.  Or I wonder if there is a way for voters to effectively force their elected Congressmen to vote for something even if they don't want to.  Any thoughts?

That Supreme Court decision was odd.

Majority by: Stevens
Joined by: Rehnquist, Kennedy, Souter, Thomas, Ginsburg
Concurrence by: Kennedy
Concurrence/dissent by: Scalia
Joined by: O'Connor; Breyer (in part)
Dissent by: Breyer
Joined by: O'Connor, Scalia (in part)

Link.

Line item veto is one of those subjects legislators like to harp about because they know they'll never get called on it - it's out of their hands.

The only issue there is that puts the fox in charge of the henhouse.

Generally the only time self enforced rules work is when an infraction wasn't going to happen anyway.

sturner wrote:

It would be simplier to forbid riders. Allow only ammendments to bills that addressed the bill itself. This is a problem in Congress, not the executive.

The problem doesn't have anything to do with the legislative process, it has to do with the intent of those drafting and passing the laws. You can have all the cleverest mechanisms ever devised, but it won't matter if the politicians are corrupt suckholes.