I'm delighted to read today that South Dakota wheat farmer Tom "the Ghoul" Daschle has withdrawn from his multiple appointments as Sultan of HHS and Healthcare Socialization Czar. The proximate reason for relieving the nation of what would surely follow from submitting the health care system to his tender mercies is that he is a tax cheat. An ordinary citizen, one who was actually subject to the laws imposed on us by our anointed political betters rather than levitating gracefully above them, would likely face criminal charges of tax evasion for his "oversight."
I've been slightly displeased to note lately that the same donkeys who so piously advocate taking more of my tax dollars as a matter of fairness, patriotism, etc, seem all to be tax cheats escaping from any real consequences of their willful transgressions. Charlie Rangel heads the Ways & Means Committee, which writes our fair republic's copious tax laws, though he himself seems not to pay his own taxes. Allegedly. And now alleged or admitted tax cheat Tim Geithner heads the federal department of which the benighted Internal Revenue Service is a part. In this context, BHO's nominee to the made-up playtime position of Chief Performance Officer ("Special Watchdog," quoth The One Himself) of an alleged or admitted tax cheat seems almost quaint in its embarrassing irony and general harmlessness. But Geithner heading Treasury boggles the mind. How can that man in clear conscience ever prosecute anyone for evading taxes, or even set rules and procedures for the supposedly evenhanded and just administration of our federal tax system? Cats and dogs lying down together, and the world has gone mad.
As many writers smarter and quicker to the pen than I have been have already said this week, it's no wonder donkeys advocate for higher tax rates...since they're all too clever, lawyerly, and politically connected to have to actually pay them. Badump-bump. Or is that not actually funny, but perhaps a legitimate criticism despite the sophomorically delicious symmetry of the presentation? The rule of law, even more than freedom and liberty, is what sets a civilized nation apart from a banana republic (freedom and liberty are what, within the pantheon of supposedly civilized nations, sets the US apart from France or Denmark, though our latest congress may be disposed in favor of dispensing with most of the things that set us apart from the Lands of Youth Street Riots). Arbitrary justice and arbitrary suspension of justice amount to essentially the same thing, and that a priveleged handful are quasi-exempt from the laws the rest of us toil under is unforgivable. Rangel and Geithner are clearly not penalized in the least for their offenses, which in the former case are ongoing for pete's sake.
Let's even be charitable for a moment, contrary to all appearances and to all of my established style of writing, and suppose all these multiple violations of the income tax code really are accidental. Unintentional oversights committed by some of the smartest people in the United States, each of whom possesses a vast familiarity with the workings of the federal government, and each of whom is wealthy enough to hire a batallion of CPAs and attorneys to ensure complete voluntary compliance with the internal revenue code. Yes, and let us suppose further that each of these civic-minded democrats who have achieved prominence within the party by decrying the greed of the rich and pledging themselves to the tireless pursuit of justice for the downtrodden and disenfranchised yearns desperately to comply with the tax code and pay their fair share of the burden of supporting the less fortunate. And let us suspend disbelief a further moment while imagining that despite the best intentions, they found themselves on the wrong side of the many byzantine twists of the 16,000 pages which make up the IRC.
Can there be a clearer indictment of the ridicularity of the whole social-engineering morass that is the IRC? Pray, brother Geithner and your elected masters in the federal congress, deliver us from the tyranny of the IRC and give us a tax code that actually makes sense. Alexander Hamilton's first federal tax code ran to three pages. If you really would like to see the tax gap eradicated and increase the productivity and profitability of small business, we could do so simply by deciding on whatever tax rate we want and applying it uniformly to all types of income. But that uniformity and transparency which you or I might find desireable traits of an elected government would strip our congressional masters of the power to select the winners and the losers, and to favor some constituencies and disfavor others. And wherever would they find the motivation to do such a thing?
Still, the Ghoul has been vanquished. We soldier on.
I've been slightly displeased to note lately that the same donkeys who so piously advocate taking more of my tax dollars as a matter of fairness, patriotism, etc, seem all to be tax cheats escaping from any real consequences of their willful transgressions. Charlie Rangel heads the Ways & Means Committee, which writes our fair republic's copious tax laws, though he himself seems not to pay his own taxes. Allegedly. And now alleged or admitted tax cheat Tim Geithner heads the federal department of which the benighted Internal Revenue Service is a part. In this context, BHO's nominee to the made-up playtime position of Chief Performance Officer ("Special Watchdog," quoth The One Himself) of an alleged or admitted tax cheat seems almost quaint in its embarrassing irony and general harmlessness. But Geithner heading Treasury boggles the mind. How can that man in clear conscience ever prosecute anyone for evading taxes, or even set rules and procedures for the supposedly evenhanded and just administration of our federal tax system? Cats and dogs lying down together, and the world has gone mad.
As many writers smarter and quicker to the pen than I have been have already said this week, it's no wonder donkeys advocate for higher tax rates...since they're all too clever, lawyerly, and politically connected to have to actually pay them. Badump-bump. Or is that not actually funny, but perhaps a legitimate criticism despite the sophomorically delicious symmetry of the presentation? The rule of law, even more than freedom and liberty, is what sets a civilized nation apart from a banana republic (freedom and liberty are what, within the pantheon of supposedly civilized nations, sets the US apart from France or Denmark, though our latest congress may be disposed in favor of dispensing with most of the things that set us apart from the Lands of Youth Street Riots). Arbitrary justice and arbitrary suspension of justice amount to essentially the same thing, and that a priveleged handful are quasi-exempt from the laws the rest of us toil under is unforgivable. Rangel and Geithner are clearly not penalized in the least for their offenses, which in the former case are ongoing for pete's sake.
Let's even be charitable for a moment, contrary to all appearances and to all of my established style of writing, and suppose all these multiple violations of the income tax code really are accidental. Unintentional oversights committed by some of the smartest people in the United States, each of whom possesses a vast familiarity with the workings of the federal government, and each of whom is wealthy enough to hire a batallion of CPAs and attorneys to ensure complete voluntary compliance with the internal revenue code. Yes, and let us suppose further that each of these civic-minded democrats who have achieved prominence within the party by decrying the greed of the rich and pledging themselves to the tireless pursuit of justice for the downtrodden and disenfranchised yearns desperately to comply with the tax code and pay their fair share of the burden of supporting the less fortunate. And let us suspend disbelief a further moment while imagining that despite the best intentions, they found themselves on the wrong side of the many byzantine twists of the 16,000 pages which make up the IRC.
Can there be a clearer indictment of the ridicularity of the whole social-engineering morass that is the IRC? Pray, brother Geithner and your elected masters in the federal congress, deliver us from the tyranny of the IRC and give us a tax code that actually makes sense. Alexander Hamilton's first federal tax code ran to three pages. If you really would like to see the tax gap eradicated and increase the productivity and profitability of small business, we could do so simply by deciding on whatever tax rate we want and applying it uniformly to all types of income. But that uniformity and transparency which you or I might find desireable traits of an elected government would strip our congressional masters of the power to select the winners and the losers, and to favor some constituencies and disfavor others. And wherever would they find the motivation to do such a thing?
Still, the Ghoul has been vanquished. We soldier on.
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