I hope none of my libertarian friends have had a chance to read my presidential endorsement yet, before this post.
I said in my last post that I support Fred Thompson as the Republican nominee because I think that he is the only candidate that offers something to each of the factions within the GOP base.
I have also said that my support, in general, has been torn between Fred Thompson and Ron Paul, so I want to talk a little about Congressman Paul.
While I do not think that Ron Paul is the man to rebuild the Republican Party, I do think that we need him in the presidential race. We need to hear what he is saying. Both parties have sold out to the big government mentality – Constitution be damned – and most Americans are not even familiar with Ron Paul’s libertarian ideas.
He has the money. He has the networks of volunteers. He has the internet presence.
My hope is that Ron Paul will run as an independent.
Now, you may think I am just hedging my bets here, since conventional wisdom says that Fred Thompson won’t win. Maybe I am. But I want to see Ron Paul in the race regardless of who wins the nomination for either party.
I think American needs to hear what he has to say.
January 2nd, 2008 at 10:08 am
Here’s a question for you…. let’s just say, that after the electoral bloodbath next year, the Dems finally get their act together, and enact some meaningful change that involves gov’t programs that actually make the lives of Americans better. And I don’t want “that won’t happen” or “gov’t can’t make peoples’ lives better” as a response. This is a theoretical.
As a result, the public starts to see that gov’t can be a change for good, and a groundswell of support rises for these programs. Then what? How do you continue to defend an increasingly marginalized viewpoint? What would your arguments be, for example, if the gov’t actually got a successful universal healthcare plan going? You going to stick with your shitty private plan or get the cheaper, better gov’t plan?
January 2nd, 2008 at 2:51 pm
“You going to stick with your shitty private plan or get the cheaper, better gov’t plan?”
Have you stopped beating your wife?
Your question implies something that is not true – that I have a “shitty” private plan. In fact, my health care coverage is just dandy. Stellar, even.
Let’s play your little fantasy game, though. If, in imaginary world, the government suddenly started providing the only good health insurance plans, would I switch? Gosh, I don’t know. Has the fact the the government underpays providers caused my private plan to go so astronomically high as to not be sustainable? Has the government offered incentives to cause my husband’s employer to drop the private coverage? Are there other factors that would force me to abandon my principles because I had – literally – no other choice?
There are too many variables, but I have been known to be so dedicated to my beliefs that I refuse government programs that I do qualify for, but don’t think I should, such as WIC and earned income credit. But, sometimes we have to surrender to the inevitable. It is hard to hypothetically say when that time is.
Maybe I could still afford to buy my own health insurance by raising unicorns, since we are in fantasy world.
If it ever happened that we found ourselves in a world where government programs really did make life better, of course I would admit that that way works. I am not being stubborn by having opinions that I think are right. But I will continue to have my opinions, until I am proven wrong, thankyouverymuch.
January 2nd, 2008 at 9:01 pm
You really don’t need Paul in the race this year as a Libertarian. None of his views are very new at all…they’re Libertarian, which comprise some single digit percentage number of the public. One of the textbook political plays that an individual can make in order to assure their election is to have as many people try and run against them as possible. This will split up the “anti-Candidate A” vote and allow Candidate A to win more easily.
One of my uncles tried to run for state senate (not in this state) a while back against a crook that took all kinds of kickbacks and actually got caught stealing condoms at a local pharmacy (his nickname from then on was “Rubbers”). “Rubbers” got as many people as he could to run against him as possible and easily won re-election. We need Instant Runoff Voting desperately to combat this trick.
You don’t take the Earned Income Tax Credit?? I thought that had bi-partisan support?
January 2nd, 2008 at 10:52 pm
“I thought that had bi-partisan support?”
I don’t know, or care, who supports it. The bottom line is that no one should ever get more back in a tax refund than they had withheld from their paycheck. That’s a welfare hand-out and that is NOT what the IRS was created to do.
I really do not think very many people understand this concept, so I am going to give an example, but I am not implying that you do not already know this.
Say Joe Smith had $1,000 withheld from his paycheck. Say his tax liability, after deductions and credits, was $0. He should have a rebate of $1,000.
With earned income credit (and now the child tax credit, too) Mr. Smith can actually get his $1,000+the EIC(+the child tax credit).
I think that is an improper use of the income tax system, so in the past, I have refused to take the credit.
I know that it will not change the government, but it was just for my own peace of mind. (And now I get to talk about it on my blog
)
January 3rd, 2008 at 3:29 am
Not to dig too deeply into your tax filing, but do you not have a problem taking the child tax credit then? I don’t know much at all about the EIC (or the tax structure as a whole for that matter), since I’ve always made too much money to be eligible for it.
January 3rd, 2008 at 2:37 pm
I do not think that the child tax credit should be refundable (meaning that it allows you to get back more than was withheld), but I do not have a problem with getting a deduction or non-refundable credit for children.
In general, people need more of their own dollars when they have a family to support, but when their children are grown and both parents can work full time (if they are not already), they will more than make up for it with what they will pay into the system.
Within our current system, I think that the child tax credit is okay, but I do not think we have the best system. I favor a flat tax with no deductions beyond a standard deduction, such as this plan.
January 4th, 2008 at 12:45 am
I think the child tax credit is very unfair. It penalizes those who don’t have children (and by extension use less resources and burden the environment less).
January 4th, 2008 at 1:42 am
I agree that our federal tax structure has way, way too many rules and loopholes in it, but this “flat/fair tax” is just a super highly regressive tax that’s a great deal if you’re rich and a horrible deal if you’re not so rich. A 17% tax rate wouldn’t even come close to generating enough revenue to run the federal govt., which I think is the really the whole point of this kind of tax in the first place.
Just from my rough calculations from the CSE website, somone making roughly 3.5 times as much money would pay less than twice the tax rate. Someone making over 45 times as much money would pay just over twice the tax rate! Taxes should be based on the ability of one to pay that tax…it’s the only fair way IMO.
That CSE website is especially funny when they talk about Milton Friedman though in their blog…lol…