No Need For Flat Taxes or Excise Taxes, John Taylor Preferred Duties and Imposts

Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – The preferable way to raise revenues, and this makes sure that it is totally equally apportioned among all the people of the several states, is to tax only, to do duties and imposts, tariffs as they’re known.  As long as they are uniform and as long as they are across the board — and it’s not a protective tax either.  It’s cost of doing business in this country.  If you want to do business here, here’s your five percent duty or five percent impost.  This way, if there is taxation, it is transparent, it is on the importation, it is not on the manufacture, it is not an excise, which is an indirect tax.  Then doing business and having your precious general government is not a penalty.  In other words, it just discharges the few duties that it has to.  If you have to have money for a war, you raise bonds.  You do it the old fashioned way.  You sell bonds and sell debt.  “We’ll pay you back in the future if you’ll help us build a battleship today.”

 

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike:  Did I hear right yesterday, Andrew — I heard the David Gregory / Mitt Romney interview and then I heard some of Paul Ryan.   Have they basically pivoted now to saying that tax cuts don’t work and that the wealthy are actually going to pay an increase in taxes, not necessarily in taxes, but [mocking] “We’re going to eliminate these loopholes in these deductions they currently have so they’re actually going to be paying more.”  Is that what I’m hearing?

AG:  That is what you’re hearing.  I’ve got Paul Ryan here from ABC’s This Week explaining the closing of loopholes and how that will actually provide additional tax revenue.

Mike:  So this is what happens when the freedom party capitulates and becomes the freedom for monopoly party.  We’ve got to keep the money in the government.  We can’t cut it.  If we do, who’s going to pay our buddies?  We’ve got to have RyanCare and RomneyCare and Medicare and all this other stuff.

AG:  Is the idea of closing these loopholes a bad one?  It seems that some — I don’t have a visceral reaction to the idea of closing loopholes.  It seems to me that you shouldn’t be getting — if you want to donate to charity, in my mind, great, but I don’t think that should necessarily be considered a write-off.  I don’t know.  I’m not against, on its face, the closing of loopholes of this and write-offs in general.

Mike:  How many people donate to things if they don’t see their tax burden go down?  This is why the whole loophole thing is a fool’s errand.  You know why there are loopholes in the tax code to start with, because somebody bought them.  They’re purchased.

AG:  In that sense, I’m not against — we talked about it a little bit on Friday after reacting to the DNC speeches and particularly President Obama’s from Thursday night.  Me as a flat tax type of guy, I, in essence, would love a one-page flat tax of 14 percent or whatever it is, no loopholes, so you wouldn’t have issues like what Paul Ryan talks about on This Week on ABC.

Mike:  Roll the digital media file and then we’ll have a little discussion about it.

[start audio clip]

Paul Ryan: The question is not necessarily what loopholes go but who gets them.  High-income earners use most of the loopholes, that means they can shelter their income from taxation.  If you take those loopholes and tax shelters away from high-income earners, more of their income is subject to taxation and that allows us to lower tax rates on everybody.

[end audio clip]

Mike:  They just love the policy, don’t they?  They just can’t help themselves.  They love the wonky stuff.  [mocking] “Well, if we raise this and lower that.”  You’re playing the target game here.  Again, you have one politician deciding that [mocking] “My way is better than the way we’re currently doing it.  I can adjust this rate here and close that loophole.”  This is a mirage.  You know something really bold would be what you just said.  Well, Governor Romney and I actually have a plan and we want to eliminate all deductions.  We want the federal income tax to be on a single five-by-seven postcard.  How much did you make?  Here’s your tax.  How much did you make last year times, if you ask me it’s times 0.00, but you say times 0.14.

AG:  I don’t see the downside.  As you describe, if you have to have one —

Mike:  Give it to me flat.

AG:  Yeah, where it’s equal percentagewise across the board for every single person in the U.S., and therefore you’re not getting, as Ryan describes, the richer people taking more advantage of these loopholes.  I don’t think them taking advantage of it is bad by any stretch, but I don’t see the downside in eliminating them in the future.

Mike:  There would be a monumental sea change in the way these clowns do their confiscation of our wealth.  If withholding were eliminated and everyone went Schedule C itemized deductions every year, and you had to pay on the first Monday in November, the day before the Tuesday elections — George Will has written about this — there would be monumental changes.  The whole thing is set up to keep a dialogue going.  They enjoy the dialogue, it seems to me.

AG:  You also mentioned how the loopholes have been bought by some aspect of the economy.  Would closing the loopholes also move us towards less corporate, less lobbying, less of that business involvement that everyone seems to complain about so heavily right now with Congress?

Mike:  Yes.

AG:  And would that be a positive towards ending those loopholes?

Mike:  There’s an entire industry that is totally based on loopholes, trillions of dollars at stake.  Let me give you one.  What would CPAs do if there weren’t any loopholes?  What would you need a CPA for?  I can figure that out, $50,000 times 0.14.  Hell, I could be Jethro from the Beverly Hillbillies.  [mocking] “With my sixth grade education, Uncle Jed, I figured that one out.  Well, doggies!”  What would you need an accountant for?  There’s an entire industry of bookkeepers and accountants that does this, purportedly to keep you out of a federal prison.  See, they build prisons for citizens these days.  If you don’t obey the government that’s the freest and best on Earth, they will lock you up in one of their jails, see Wesley Snipes, see Irwin Schiff.

AG:  I’ve got another clip, this time Mitt Romney on Meet the Press describing his tax policy.

Mike:  I can’t wait.  Let’s hear it.

[start audio clip]

Governor Romney: With regards to taxation, follow simple principles, which is bring our rates down to encourage growth, keep revenue up by limiting deductions and exemptions, and make sure we don’t put any bigger burden on middle income people.  In fact, I want to lower the burden on middle income people.

David Gregory: Governor, where are the specifics of how you get to this now?  Isn’t that an issue?

Governor Romney:  Well, the specifics are these: those principles that I described are the heart of my policy.  I’ve indicated as well that, contrary to what the Democrats are saying, I’m not going to increase the tax burden on middle income families.  It would absolutely be wrong to do that.

[end audio clip]

Mike:  He asked him for specifics.  I think they should hire you for a campaign consultant.  It’s so wonky and so detailed and complicated, he can’t even describe it.

AG:  I’m kind of buying what he said there.  Ten minutes ago, we played the clip of Governor Romney speaking about how he wants to keep aspects of ObamaCare in existence if he were to become president.  That, I’m not buying, but when he talks about eliminating deductions and loopholes, I’m in.  I’m in on that.

Mike:  I think that corporate taxes and income taxes, you can eliminate them and you would still have excise taxes, an ample supply of excise taxes to fund your precious federal government.  At the end of the day, and John Taylor of Caroline wrote about this in his pamphlet and argument respecting the carriage tax, which was argued in Richmond, Virginia in 1794, which I am translating and going to record an audio version as well.  At the end of the day, the excise tax was not the purpose of the Constitution.

As a matter of fact, it was thought that an excise tax would be unfair to impose on American citizens because it could never be properly apportioned.  You may see one or two excise taxes that you could properly apportion, for example, gasoline or diesel.  Almost everyone drives or uses something that is motor driven by a “fossil fuel.”  You could see that an excise tax might be properly apportioned and divided up, but still, it’s a tyranny.  You’re taxing an activity that because you’re a free nation, we’re told, you should be able to participate in regardless.  [mocking] “Mike, we have to have roads and bridges.”  So says you.  You guys are the ones that said let’s let the government build the roads instead of individuals.

Back to that point, the preferable way to raise revenues, and this makes sure that it is totally equally apportioned among all the people of the several states, is to tax only, to do duties and imposts, tariffs as they’re known.  As long as they are uniform and as long as they are across the board — and it’s not a protective tax either.  It’s cost of doing business in this country.  If you want to do business here, here’s your five percent duty or five percent impost.  This way, if there is taxation, it is transparent, it is on the importation, it is not on the manufacture, it is not an excise, which is an indirect tax.  Then doing business and having your precious general government is not a penalty.  In other words, it just discharges the few duties that it has to.  If you have to have money for a war, you raise bonds.  You do it the old fashioned way.  You sell bonds and sell debt.  “We’ll pay you back in the future if you’ll help us build a battleship today.”

End Mike Church Show Transcript