Whole Lot of Nothing

So much for the President's vaunted Tax Advisory Panel. I suppose we shouldn't have expected anything so radical (or intelligent) as a suggestion to adopt the Fair Tax. It would have at least been nice for them to discuss tax elimination or reduction, as everyone thought they might. Instead, they mostly spoke on hiking taxes and creating new taxes.

There was some discussion of elimination of the dreaded Alternative Minimum Tax, which is slowly engulfing the middle class in a nightmare of tax payments. Most of it was centered around what to replace the fountain of revenue they get with it, though. That will likely come at the expense of investors and people who own fairly valuable homes (fairly valuable homes including pretty much all of those east of the Hudson and west of the Rockies).

The panel decided not to endorse a national sales tax, although that it was even considered is appaling to me. Yes, we're not taxed enough on income and payroll and social welfare programs, let's add a national sales tax. Those sorts of taxes, as Canadians should well know, can slowly creep up and up as the government decides it needs the extra revenue. They're almost as juicy to raise as payroll taxes.

There was serious consideration given to the Value Added Tax or VAT. Most European nations seemingly swear by this tax that adds a burden on the manufacturers who produce goods. And where does that burden go? Does it stay with them? No, silly rabbit, it gets passed on to consumers and the economy suffers for it.

So what did this panel produce? A lot of paper, a few well-meaning incentives to help "the poor" and lots of ideas on how to stick it to "the rich" and otherwise a whole lot of nothing. Did they seriously entertain elimination of federal income tax or anything along that line? No, are you kidding? That's WAY too much revenue for them to walk away from. When most of the panel consists of Beltway insiders, it should be obvious that no benefit to the American taxpayer will come of it.

In drawing out further the old tired analogy, the foxes held a meeting in which was discussed how best to provide relief to the chickens who they were eating at the request of the chickens. The foxes decided that it would be better to fry or bake with cilantro and garlic the fattest chickens, but proposed setting aside the skinnier chickens until later for stir fry. So much for chicken relief.