The other shoe drops?

Twice this morning, I heard different radio talking heads say that Obama may be considering a national sales tax to pay for the cost of the stimulus package he will sign today. Interestingly, I was unable to find a single print reference to this idea.

If it turns out to be true, a national sales tax, effectively the cousin to the EU’s value added tax (VAT), would kill the tepid tax reduction promised to most Americans as part of the stimulus. If a national sales tax is enacted, this slight of hand would reduce the stimulus cost by the value of the tax break, leaving the government with its massive new spending plans intact.

Of course, this is not how Obama-Reid-Pelosi will spin this idea. Instead, it will be more “we need to do something right now” fear mongering like the kind that gave us TARP and, now, stimulus.

This is what 57 percent of us asked for: $2623 in debt per person and new taxes change. Do you believe in it now?

-=DLH=-

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6 Responses to The other shoe drops?

  1. Keneil says:

    This isn’t the last shoe to drop. This one is lighweight compared to what I think is coming.

  2. dlhitzeman says:

    The sad part, to me at least, is that it does not have to be this way. Republican democracy can and does work when the citizens of such a nation actively participate in their government. What we are seeing in Obama-Reid-Pelosi is the consequence of a nation full of citizens that have abdicated their responsibility.

    Of course, I still hope that the experience of the next few years has the same effect on Americans that the Carter years did and that we find a leader like Reagan at the othere end.

  3. dlhitzeman says:

    BTW, welcome readers from freerepublic.com, fairtaxnation.com, and any others I may have missed. Please feel free to poke around and comment.

  4. dlhitzeman says:

    How about a congestion tax because we all drive too much?

  5. Keneil says:

    I read somewhere that the idea of a road usage fee on license plates has already been mentioned. The plates would stay with the car and the plate fee would be determined each year by the car’s mileage.

  6. dlhitzeman says:

    I think that a usage fee would be a great idea if we were not already paying quite a lot of taxes already to fund the roads. The problem with usage fees, unlike bonds or even income taxes, is that they tend to be open ended and insidious because the fees can be changed by small amounts over time without most people noticing the increase.

    I’ve always wondered if the better solution is not to privatize roads like they used to be. Give people a profit motive to make things work, and they will work better and cost less. It’s when the profit motive is taken away or is so heavily regulated it becomes nonsense that the problems begin.

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