“It will create a bureaucracy with the efficiency of the Post Office, the frugality of the Pentagon and the compassion of the IRS.”
— Mantra of those who opposed HillaryCare in the 1990s.
In the idealistic constitutional fantasies of those who harbor high hopes and short memories, the accumulating effect of the scandals piling up like rotting garbage at the front door of the White House will result in the impeachment and removal from office of Barack Hussein Obama, 44th President of the United States. Despite the dog and pony show Congress will inevitably put on, no such scenario will ever play itself out.
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Like Bill Clinton, Obama will never relinquish control of the empire the American people have allowed him to create for himself. And unless the United States Senate magically becomes populated with 67 clones of Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, there will never exist a quorum of statesmen willing to remove the modern day equivalent of what Nixon aide John Dean called “a cancer growing on the presidency.”
While Benghazi-gate is the scandal that could most easily be laid directly at Obama’s feet, the atmosphere created by a huge, out-of-control, left-leaning government (and a president who likes it that way) is symptomatic of why we are experiencing such rapid erosion of our freedom. To utilize the tortured term for political scandal even further, this atmosphere is how we ended up with IRS-gate, AP-gate and who knows what other gates?
Obama was right about one thing: what is needed is fundamental change — and it must start with our federal tax code. The 16th Amendment to the United States Constitution states: “The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration.” To those 30 words, over the last century, Congress has added so many thousands of pages of rules, restrictions, regulations, exemptions and officious gobbledygook that we now have a government entity that no one trusts and everyone fears.
Complete and total repeal of the 16th Amendment is the only way to forever drive a stake through the heart of the liberty-sucking vampire known as the Internal Revenue Service. Tinkering around the edges will not suffice. A flat tax will not do it, because the IRS remains behind as the most powerful and odious collection agency on the planet.
America needs the Fair Tax — a national sales tax that replaces all federal taxes on income, including payroll taxes that support Social Security and Medicare.
Space does not permit me to detail the benefits of the Fair Tax. If you are truly interested in it, look it up at www.fairtax.org. Bold, conservative members of Congress like Steve King of Iowa and John Linder of Georgia (the original sponsor of the legislation in the House of Representatives) have been elected repeatedly on its merits.
The Fair Tax would allow each of us to keep every dime we earn. We would then pay a federal sales tax on all new consumer items. You, not your congressman, would decide how much tax you paid. What could you do with the extra funds if you were taking home that gross figure every payday rather than the so-called “net,” which is nothing more than what the federal government allows you to keep?
Picture a trillion dollar anchor being dragged through our economy every year, with half the population having no skin in the game. And we wonder why we are sliding toward banana republic welfare-state status.
Imagine no more April 15th. No more receipts. No more endless forms. No more manipulating your income or outgo to reflect what the feds want you to do. No more undeclared hidden income from shadowy activities. No more playing favorites, deciding who receives or who is denied tax exempt status. No more abuse of a powerful agency by bureaucrats trying to please their tyrannical bosses to punish their political enemies. Imagine not having to tell the government how much you earn, because it is none of their business!
So don’t bother imagining no more Obama. Imagine instead no more IRS. Study the issue and then call your congressman. The will of the people could make this happen.
© 2013 by Doug Patton – Doug Patton describes himself as a recovering political speechwriter who agrees with himself more often than not. His weekly columns are distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. For more info contact Cari Dawson Bartley at cari@cagle.com. Readers are encouraged to email him at dpatton@cagle.com and/or to follow him on Twitter at @Doug_Patton.
