Why are you cowards so scared to discuss the HONESTY of Rand Paul?

[lustylad]

Originally Posted by gnadfly

This thread has lasted longer than the Rand Paul Presidential Candidacy.

That's Rand Paul's fault, not mine. We're just getting warmed up!

[CuteOldGuy]

Originally Posted by CaptainMidnight

Yep! Pretty amazing, huh?

But there's one thing people need to understand about followers of the FairTax cult. They tend to launch into high dudgeon if you in any way challenge the wild exaggerations and other laughable bullshit served up in the Boortz-Linder book and on their advocacy websites. I have challenged COG multiple times over the last few years to post a link to a reputable, unbiased source bolstering his claims of the FairTax's viability and workability. Or, alternatively, he could try to cogently explain the issue in his own words. (That'll be the day!) Of course, he whiffs every time. He won't answer the questions because he obviously can't do so in a convincing, reasoned fashion.

If you check out that book or take a glance at the websites, you'll see more sleight of hand than you would at any magic show!

You're deflecting. There was no question put to me. I'm not dodging anything. You are. That's fine. I didn't drag the FaitTax into this, you did. If you don't want to answer my question, don't. Or if you think you did, fine. Leave it at that. All I know for sure is that I tried to be civil. You rejected that.


The income tax is immoral. The underlying presumption is your income belongs to the government, and they decide how much you get to keep. But, if you do the things government wants you to do, you get to keep more. Unless you do too many things the government wants you to do, they come back for it in the alternative minimum tax. Unless you pay big money to the right lawmakers, like GE has, and then you get to keep it all, with more added.


And that's the system you defend. A few "tweaks" here and there, and it will be fine. It will never be fine. It will always be corrupt, immoral, unfair, and a tool for government control.

[DSK]

Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

You're deflecting. There was no question put to me. I'm not dodging anything. You are. That's fine. I didn't drag the FaitTax into this, you did. If you don't want to answer my question, don't. Or if you think you did, fine. Leave it at that. All I know for sure is that I tried to be civil. You rejected that.


The income tax is immoral. The underlying presumption is your income belongs to the government, and they decide how much you get to keep. But, if you do the things government wants you to do, you get to keep more. Unless you do too many things the government wants you to do, they come back for it in the alternative minimum tax. Unless you pay big money to the right lawmakers, like GE has, and then you get to keep it all, with more added.


And that's the system you defend. A few "tweaks" here and there, and it will be fine. It will never be fine. It will always be corrupt, immoral, unfair, and a tool for government control.

My idea for a fair tax would be to charge people a bunch of money to apply for citizenship, and a lot more if they get it. Also, quit the family reunification bias - it isn't our problem if someone breaks up their family by moving here.

A fair tax is probably a matter of opinion, but I wish it were more closely related to what people use, rather than what they make.

So, in that respect I like the FairTax but I agree with the Captain that it isn't politically viable and it would be prohibitively high, though perhaps we can transition to it at the same time we bolster the profit on as many government operations as possible to cut government subsidies and require less tax revenue. Plus, each state should pay for their own giveaway programs.

All government operations that can possibly make a profit should do it. Hell, they have a monopoly on some shit, how can you not profit in that situation?

[CuteOldGuy]

But you think we can print all the money we want, with no consequences. I'm not sure I'd care to listen to what you have to say.

The only reason the FairTax would be prohibitively high, is because Congress spends way too damn much. Income taxes would be through the roof if we weren't borrowing what we can never pay back and printing worthless money to support it. The real tax rate for most Americans who can't afford to buy politicians is well over 50%. Add to that inflation, which is a hidden tax on the poorest Americans, and it gets higher.

[DSK]

Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

But you think we can print all the money we want, with no consequences. I'm not sure I'd care to listen to what you have to say.

The only reason the FairTax would be prohibitively high, is because Congress spends way too damn much. Income taxes would be through the roof if we weren't borrowing what we can never pay back and printing worthless money to support it. The real tax rate for most Americans who can't afford to buy politicians is well over 50%. Add to that inflation, which is a hidden tax on the poorest Americans, and it gets higher.

I agree we spend too much and that is our principal problem. However, because we aren't going to stop spending too much, and I don't want to pay more taxes, we should print the money.

It wouldn't work if everyone were like the bankers of Switzerland, but since everyone else is printing as much money as they can get away with, and we want to also weaken the dollar and cause a little inflation, quantitative easing - expanding the balance sheet, is virtually free money via seigniorage, as long as we don't get runaway inflation.

(Seigniorage - The Profit of Creating Money)

from thismatter.com:

Seigniorage is Greatest for Electronic Money

The greatest amount of seigniorage results from the electronic creation of money, since virtually any amount of money can be created electronically at virtually no cost.

In most countries, central banks have control over the creation and destruction of money. For instance, because of the credit crisis of 2008 and 2009, central banks all over the world were creating vast amounts of money — often called quantitative easing — by buying government securities with their newly created money, thereby trading debt securities, which cannot be used as a means of payment, into money, which can be. Buying government securities injects the new money into the economy by giving it to the traders who sold their debt securities. For instance, when the Federal Reserve, which is the central bank of the United States, purchases Treasuries from its primary dealers—mostly commercial or investment banks—it simply increases their reserves by the amount of the purchase price, allowing the banks to lend or invest the money in the general economy.

After the economies get going, then the central banks will lower the supply of money by reversing the effects of quantitative easing, by selling government securities to their primary dealers, which decreases the dealers' reserves at the central bank, thereby reducing the supply of money to the economy. The money supply can also be decreased by increasing reserve requirements for the banks, or by raising the discount rate, which is the interest rate that banks must pay for interbank loans.

However, there is a limit to how much money governments can create before they hurt their economies through inflation. If money doesn't have a relatively stable value, then people lose faith in it as a medium of exchange, and especially as a store of value, with dire consequences for the economy. This is why governments are mostly financed with taxes, even though taxes are unpopular.

[Texas Contrarian]

Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

You're deflecting. There was no question put to me. I'm not dodging anything. You are. That's fine. I didn't drag the FaitTax into this, you did. If you don't want to answer my question, don't. Or if you think you did, fine. Leave it at that. All I know for sure is that I tried to be civil. You rejected that.

Really? That's rich! You have been a champion of dodging and deflecting for years. When pressed, I addressed your question, and merely pointed out when you accused me of ignoring it that I've addressed it in the past, and more than once. How many times do I need to give you the same answer before you get it? Go check the record. You, on the other hand, continually dodged -- in multiple threads -- my challenge to you to back up all your extravagant claims about the FairTax. You whiffed every time.

The income tax is immoral. The underlying presumption is your income belongs to the government, and they decide how much you get to keep. But, if you do the things government wants you to do, you get to keep more. Unless you do too many things the government wants you to do, they come back for it in the alternative minimum tax. Unless you pay big money to the right lawmakers, like GE has, and then you get to keep it all, with more added.

Although you may consider the income tax immoral, I'm sure you realize it's here to stay. I'm equally sure that I don't like paying income taxes any more than you do, but suggest that you find some other, possibly more compliant windmill to tilt at.

And that's the system you defend. A few "tweaks" here and there, and it will be fine. It will never be fine. It will always be corrupt, immoral, unfair, and a tool for government control.

Huh?? In what way did I "defend" the income tax. All I wrote about was what is possible, not what might exist in a libertarian utopia. And I'm fairly confidant you realize that deep-sixing the income tax in the U.S. is not within the realm of possibility.

Lest anyone be uncertain what I'm referring to when I challenged you to back up your claims in the past, here are just a couple of key points:

First, the FairTax would be highly regressive, contrary to what you claimed repeatedly in the first of those long threads. People like me, for instance, would enjoy the biggest tax cut in history, dwarfing that passed under G. W. Bush by a very large margin.

So, OK, riddle me this: If people like me get a huge tax cut under the FairTax, and if you set the rate to such a level that the plan would be revenue-neutral, just how in the world are you going to sell the FairTax to America's middle class?

Here's how. With an industrial-strength dose of legerdemain!

Consider the statements regarding "embedded taxes," which according to the authors of the Boortz-Linder book, and later the purveyors of multiple FairTax websites, amount to -- on average -- about 22% of goods and services subject to the FairTax. Someone must have picked up on this idea and decided it was true, since just about every FairTax proponent has parroted it for years. (It must be true! The author of a NY Times bestseller said it was true!!)

Now here's the really good part! Since the FairTax would replace all other taxes, the 22% cost component now supposedly attributable to "embedded taxes" would vanish, so that after the "23%" FairTax is added the price of the item would not rise appreciably! (Never mind the fact that the FairTax rate is actually about 30%, not 23%, if presented honestly. But that distinction involves pesky things like logic and math; not generally long suits for FairTax enthusiasts.)

And that's not all! There's much more!

In the Boortz-Linder book, and on the FairTax advocacy sites, you can read all about how you will be able to "keep your whole paycheck" after the FairTax is implemented. That is, there will no longer be withholding from your paycheck, since there will no no income or payroll taxes. So there you have it. You pay no income taxes or payroll taxes; only consumption tax on goods and services, which won't rise in price since the added FairTax is more or less canceled out by the elimination of all those "embedded taxes!"

And there you have it folks! It's like magic!

(If you think I'm kidding about these claims, just take a quick look at the FairTax sites, or go through one of the long threads on this site.)

I don't think even Bernie Sanders has the audacity to promise that much free stuff!

[Texas Contrarian]

Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

...The real tax rate for most Americans who can't afford to buy politicians is well over 50%...

Say what??

Where in the world do you get numbers indicating that the "real tax" on "most Americans" is well over 50%? In fact, on average, for people below the top couple of deciles of the income distribution, it's no more than about one-half of that.

[CuteOldGuy]

Both your posts are bullshit. I tried to be civil, but you just can't. Have your fun lying about me. I'm not taking the bait.

[Texas Contrarian]

Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

Both your posts are bullshit. I tried to be civil, but you just can't. Have your fun lying about me. I'm not taking the bait.

Not a single word I posted is bullshit. Go look again, and try to pay attention for a change. I simply stated -- accurately -- what the authors of the NY Times bestseller FairTax book and the advocacy websites claim boldly and with great piety. By "not taking the bait," what you really mean is that you'll take a pass on answering my questions once again, since you are bamboozled by this issue and have no idea how to articulate reasoned support of all those laughably ridiculous claims. And where are all those "economists" and "financial experts" who you kept claiming lend credence to the FairTax's viability? In a witness protection program? Good Lord. You must have started at least a dozen threads on the FairTax over the last four or five years, both here and in the "national sandbox" (before the political forum was created). One would think that you'd at least try to make a rudimentary attempt to understand the issue somewhere along the way. Clearly, though, you have not.

And it's quite amusing to see you, of all people, hectoring someone on the issue of civil discourse!

(All of the below quotes are from THIS thread, and they were unprovoked and gratuitous. YOU were the one who started the name-calling.)

Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

You are too stupid to be a true Libertarian. No Libertarian thinks that printing fiat money at will is a good idea. In fact, true Libertarians favor ending the FED and backing our money with gold or silver.

Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

Where the hell did you get that from my post? Your contact with reality declines daily.

Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

When have we stopped? Who is in charge of the printing? Who decides when, and how much to print? Who decides where to place it? You don't know, do you? I don't either, but I'll bet they don't have our best interests at heart. You're their pawn, and a moron.

Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

They have not done a full independent audit. They are only allowed to audit what the FED will allow them to audit. And you're still a moron. They need a policy audit. Yep, you're still the moron.

Oh. You didn't answer the question. Moron.

Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

Just admit you're too stupid to answer. At least you'd be honest.

Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

Would you believe I never took those courses? Honest! But you still didn't admit you are too stupid to answer the question. Doesn't matter. It's obvious.

Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

You have issues, Lusty. At the time, I didn't care why they impeached Nixon, so long as they did. I held a party when he resigned. The Constitution provides for Congress to manage the money supply. And I hold no cash positions.

Have some Ovaltine and take a nap. You'll feel better.

Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

Do your research. Or not. If you remain ignorant, it's your choice. Not my problem.

Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

Seriously? He has no response, and you applaud him? Go figure. You can choose to remain ignorant, too. You won't be alone.

Oh, my! That's a pretty good lesson on decorum and civility for just one thread, don't you think?

The example you set as a paragon of civil debate is probably just as impressive as your understanding of economics, finance, and tax policy!

By the way, speaking of economics ...

Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

...lying...

Do you really want to broach the subject of lying? OK, you asked for it! Here is what surely must be the most obviously false boast (from 2013) that anyone ever made in any of these tax discussion threads.

Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

And by the way, I taught university level economics.

Uh-huh. Sure you did!

[CuteOldGuy]

Your rehashing old stuff. Enjoy!

[lustylad]

Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

Both your posts are bullshit. I tried to be civil....

Did someone say “let's be civil”? Ok, I'll play.

I haven't read everything about the Fair Tax, but from what I can gather it's a proposal to replace all federal income taxes on individuals and corporations with a flat national sales tax of 23%. If I mischaracterize anything, I am sure COG will correct me (in a civil way) since he is (or was) the biggest proponent of the idea.

Here's how a professional economist would evaluate the proposal. To judge whether it is "revenue-neutral" as claimed, we need to compare the revenues it would raise versus the revenues it would replace. For a quick and dirty estimate, let's start with the fact that the US economy is currently around $18 trillion in GNP. Personal consumption accounts for 70% or $12.6 trillion of this. So taxing all consumption at 23% would generate $2.9 trillion. Now adjust this number downward for two things – 1) deduct sales that are exempt under the Fair Tax and 2) deduct “leakage” from transactions going off the books to evade the tax.

If switching to the Fair Tax is expected to boost revenues by unleashing faster economic growth, as its advocates claim, then we need to quantify this impact. Assuming it would expand GNP by an extra 1% a year (which would be huge) would mean extra annual revenues of $29 billion in the above illustration – BEFORE any adjustments/deductions for exemptions and leakage.

Now what about the revenues that are replaced by the Fair Tax? That's easy to look up. Federal tax revenues are running at $3.2 trillion a year. Nearly all of that would go away if we switch to a Fair Tax.

So using my crude methodology, even under the most favorable assumptions (zero exemptions, zero leakage, and faster economic growth of 1% a year) the Fair Tax would not be revenue-neutral but would cut federal tax receipts by at least $270 billion a year. If we relax the favorable assumptions, the negative impact on revenues would be much higher.

Now let's consider the impact on prices. Start with the fact that everything subject to the new tax would immediately cost 23% more at the cash register. Fair Tax proponents say this could be fully offset if producers pass along their full savings from no longer having to pay taxes on wages and profits – costs that were previously “embedded” in their prices. A good economist would evaluate this claim by measuring the embedded tax savings.

Start with payroll costs. They vary widely, depending on business. In the restaurant business, payroll costs typically account for 30-35% of sales. In retailing, the percentage is only 10-15%. And taxes are just a fraction of total payroll costs. If we assume they are one-fourth of payroll, then even a labor-intensive business such as a restaurant would save at most 9% (¼ of 35%). And since most of these taxes are deducted from employee pay, the only way for a restaurant owner to realize the savings (and pass them along in the form of lower menu prices) would be to reduce gross employee wages by the amount that used to be withheld from their paychecks. I doubt if this would happen, at least not in full.

Embedded taxes on profits are even smaller – no more than 3% of sales, assuming a 10% gross profit margin and a 30% corporate tax rate. So even under the most favorable scenario, removing embedded taxes would only offset about half (9 + 3 = 12%) of the amount that a 23% Fair Tax would add to prices at the cash register. And if we relax the favorable assumptions I made in the above illustration, the savings are far less.

So I would have to say my cursory look at the Fair Tax suggests it wouldn't live up to the hype. This doesn't mean it isn't a good idea to start taxing consumption more and income less. It just means we need to be realistic and measure the cost/benefits as objectively as possible.

Any comments? What am I missing? Be civil.

[Texas Contrarian]

Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

Your rehashing old stuff. Enjoy!

Oh, I always enjoy. Even though my tax burden has not been cut to a small fraction of what it is now by implementing the FairTax, life's good!

And speaking of "old stuff" (from four years ago), let me give you kudos for offering excellent advice at the end of the opening post in one of your many FairTax threads!

http://www.eccie.net/showthread.php?t=451451

Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

For those of you so concerned about the poor, try this out. The poor do MUCH BETTER under the FairTax than the do the rich. Fact is, everyone does better, but the poor and middle class come out a lot better, relatively.

http://www.fairtax.org/site/News2?pa...news_iv_ctrl=0

Usual rules apply. If you don't understand the basics of the FairTax, STFU.

Thank you.

[Texas Contrarian]

Hot damn!

A chance to discuss policy with someone who won't start attacking and insulting me if I criticize someone's pet tax system!

Originally Posted by lustylad

Did someone say “let's be civil”? Ok, I'll play.

I haven't read everything about the Fair Tax, but from what I can gather it's a proposal to replace all federal income taxes on individuals and corporations with a flat national sales tax of 23%. (It's actually 30% -- see below) If I mischaracterize anything, I am sure COG will correct me (in a civil way) since he is (or was) the biggest proponent of the idea. See (1)

Here's how a professional economist would evaluate the proposal. To judge whether it is "revenue-neutral" as claimed, we need to compare the revenues it would raise versus the revenues it would replace. For a quick and dirty estimate, let's start with the fact that the US economy is currently around $18 trillion in GNP. Personal consumption accounts for 70% or $12.6 trillion of this. So taxing all consumption at 23% would generate $2.9 trillion. Now adjust this number downward for two things – 1) deduct sales that are exempt under the Fair Tax and 2) deduct “leakage” from transactions going off the books to evade the tax. See (2)

If switching to the Fair Tax is expected to boost revenues by unleashing faster economic growth, as its advocates claim, then we need to quantify this impact. Assuming it would expand GNP by an extra 1% a year (which would be huge) would mean extra annual revenues of $29 billion in the above illustration – BEFORE any adjustments/deductions for exemptions and leakage. See (3)

Now what about the revenues that are replaced by the Fair Tax? That's easy to look up. Federal tax revenues are running at $3.2 trillion a year. Nearly all of that would go away if we switch to a Fair Tax.

So using my crude methodology, even under the most favorable assumptions (zero exemptions, zero leakage, and faster economic growth of 1% a year) the Fair Tax would not be revenue-neutral but would cut federal tax receipts by at least $270 billion a year. If we relax the favorable assumptions, the negative impact on revenues would be much higher. See (4)

Now let's consider the impact on prices. Start with the fact that everything subject to the new tax would immediately cost 23% more at the cash register. Fair Tax proponents say this could be fully offset if producers pass along their full savings from no longer having to pay taxes on wages and profits – costs that were previously “embedded” in their prices. A good economist would evaluate this claim by measuring the embedded tax savings.

Start with payroll costs. They vary widely, depending on business. In the restaurant business, payroll costs typically account for 30-35% of sales. In retailing, the percentage is only 10-15%. And taxes are just a fraction of total payroll costs. If we assume they are one-fourth of payroll, then even a labor-intensive business such as a restaurant would save at most 9% (¼ of 35%). And since most of these taxes are deducted from employee pay, the only way for a restaurant owner to realize the savings (and pass them along in the form of lower menu prices) would be to reduce gross employee wages by the amount that used to be withheld from their paychecks. I doubt if this would happen, at least not in full.

Embedded taxes on profits are even smaller – no more than 3% of sales, assuming a 10% gross profit margin and a 30% corporate tax rate. So even under the most favorable scenario, removing embedded taxes would only offset about half (9 + 3 = 12%) of the amount that a 23% Fair Tax would add to prices at the cash register. And if we relax the favorable assumptions I made in the above illustration, the savings are far less. See (5)

So I would have to say my cursory look at the Fair Tax suggests it wouldn't live up to the hype. This doesn't mean it isn't a good idea to start taxing consumption more and income less. It just means we need to be realistic and measure the cost/benefits as objectively as possible.

Any comments? What am I missing? Be civil. I certainly will, unless COG resumes his shit-slinging!

1) If presented honestly, the tax rate is actually about 30%, not 23%. The reason is that, in order to make it sound better, FairTax promoters decided to pitch the plan by disingenuously presenting the tax-inclusive rate, unlike the manner in which sales taxes are normally described. Let's say that something with no sales tax would cost you $100. The FairTax is designed to make it the case that AFTER you add the sales tax, the percentage of the after-tax price is 23%. Adding about $30 to the $100 pretax price does just that. To anyone else, that sounds like a 30% tax. But to a FairTax advocate, it's 23%!

2) All of the studies I've seen on broad-based consumption taxes seem to suggest that revenue expectations fall far short of the back-of-the-envelope number you get if you simply figure the product of what is purported to be personal consumption expenditures and the tax rate applied to that base. I recall, for instance, that the aforementioned Robert Barro has written several times that a well-designed, broad-based consumption tax in the US could be expected to raise 0.5% of GDP for each percentage point of the tax rate. European experience with the portion of the VAT that's not exempted for necessities indicates the same thing after adjusting, of course, for Europe's lower levels of consumer spending relative to the US.

Also, when the Bush Treasury Department hired some consultants to look into this idea and similar consumption tax plans back around 2005 (at more or less the same time they tried to promote Social Security privatization), they gave up on it after concluding that the tax-exclusive rate would have to be a little more than 30% just to replace the income tax, and to make it revenue-neutral, you would have to leave the payroll tax in place. The only economists I've seen dispute analyses such as these are people like Laurence Kotlikoff (a Boston University professor who moonlights as a well-paid shill for the FairTax).

3) Although one must always consider the dynamic effects of any tax policy change, I have serious concerns about major disruption of certain key industries. What would happen, for instance, if you suddenly slapped a new 30% sales tax on new cars and light trucks? Obviously, the market for vehicles would be hyperstimulated in the run-up period before the tax was implemented, but would be depressed for quite some time thereafter. Same thing for the housing industry, as the FairTax would apply to new homes (but not pre-owned ones).

4) I think one reason the negative impact on revenues would be very high is that evasion would be at least as large a problem as it is today. Note that income tax collections fall well short of what analyses of effective tax rates, brackets, and US personal income as estimated by most economists would suggest. Although an aggregate estimate of unreported income is anybody's guess, I don't think many people doubt that it's several hundred billion dollars per year. And there's no reason to expect that it would be any less under the FairTax. Large portions of the incomes of small business owners and service providers would no doubt take a detour around the cash register if you imposed a 30% sales tax.

5) FairTax supporters are loathe to release any data supporting their claims involving "embedded taxes," and I think it's pretty easy to see why.

For starters, although this may in some instances, of course, depend on elasticity of certain labor markets, economists seem to be in virtually full agreement that the incidence of the employer portion of the payroll tax falls wholly, or at least almost wholly, on the employee, not the employer. If that's true, and I believe that it is, one may expect that in the event the payroll tax were completely eliminated, most workers' paychecks would settle at an amount approximately equal to their current gross pay, less both the employee's and employer's "side" of the former payroll tax. Thus the employer's cost of hiring a worker would remain constant across the transition.

Although it's been a while since I was involved with VC and private equity deals, I believe the average taxable profit margin across a broad range of industries is more like 6% rather than 10%. Of course, it's higher in a few industries and much lower in others. As a very rough guess, and assuming a 17% average corporate effective tax rate, I doubt seriously that "embedded" corporate income taxes amount to more than about 1% of gross sales. And that doesn't take into account the obvious fact that costs attributable to "embedded taxes" borne by many service providers are little, if any, greater than zero.

Another thing to remember here is that the FairTax features a "prebate," which FairTax supporters describe as a payment to every household designed to reimburse lower-income families for the tax levied on basic necessities such as food and clothing. (I suppose we're supposed to forget the obvious fact that they also claim that prices won't go up after the 30% tax is added on, since all those "embedded taxes" now disappear, and that the "prebate" should therefore be completely unnecessary!)

I'm too lazy to go look it up in one of their tables, but I think the annual "prebate" averages something like $6K for a typical family, and varies according to the number in your household. That suggests that the prebate alone would run somewhere around 3.5% or 4% of GDP.

Assuming that the estimates offered by Robert Barro and others are in the ballpark, one may reasonably expect that the FairTax, as presented by its supporters, would raise about 15% of GDP, and perhaps 11 or 11.5% after subtracting the "prebate."

Doesn't sound very "revenue-neutral" to me!

[CuteOldGuy]

Seriously? You're going to actually go there? I was trying to start a civil discussion, but you were the one, CaptainMidnight who chose to take the low road.

I didn't start this to defend the FairTax. I already know what you're going to say. I wanted to find out where your core values on taxation are. We can go on endlessly about what and where to tweak in our current system, which you have said you do not support. So, given a clean slate, what, to you is a good system of taxation? I even said I had no intention of criticize it, regardless of what you brought up. That was because I thought we had reached an understanding long ago to be civil.


We both know that the FairTax will never be implemented, although we have very different reasons for thinking so. I support the FairTax because it reflects my core values of freedom, transparency, simplicity, privacy, and volunteerism. What are your core values when it comes to taxation, Cap'n?

[Texas Contrarian]

Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

Seriously? You're going to actually go there? I was trying to start a civil discussion, but you were the one, CaptainMidnight who chose to take the low road.

Given your long history of attacking me without provocation and gratuitously insulting me at almost every turn, your whine that I "took the low road" is beyond ridiculous. In post #102, you accused me of "ranting" and "name-calling," although I had done neither. Then you falsely popped off that my post #111 was "bullshit." Why don't you try explaining to me why it's "bullshit?" I'll tell you why. You can't. It's spot on.

Get over yourself. You do slip into civility now and then, but it never seems to take you long to revert to form!