and why is he running for President?

Quote :

"Former U.S. Sen. Mike Gravel to Announce His Candidacy for Democratic Nomination for President of the United States Wed Apr 12, 12:59 PM ET To: Assignment Desk, Daybook Editor Contact: Elliott Jacobson, 202-558-6394, 202-460-8340 (cell) News Advisory: WHO: Mike Gravel for President 2008 WHAT: Press Conference where former United States Senator Mike Gravel (D-Alaska, 1969-1980) will announce his Candidacy for the Democratic Nomination for President of the United States. WHEN: Monday, April 17, 10 a.m. WHERE: The National Press Club, Zenger Room, 13th Floor, 529 14th Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 20045, 202-662-7500, 202-662-7512 - Fax Paid for by Mike Gravel for President 2008"

4/13/2006 2:26:04 PM

hahahaha awesome

i was wondering who that was

4/13/2006 2:26:36 PM

Wikipedia is your friend:

Quote :

"Maurice Robert Gravel (born May 13, 1930 in Springfield, Massachusetts), better known as Mike Gravel, was a Democratic U.S. Senator (1969-1981) from Alaska and is primarily known to history as the person who published a large portion of the Pentagon Papers. Gravel also nominated himself for Vice President of the United States at the 1972 Democratic National Convention and is a candidate for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in 2008. During his first term in the Senate he authored of a book entitled Citizen Power. In the book he advocated the implementation of numerous social democratic schemes, including a guaranteed annual income (which he termed a "citizen's wage") of $5,000 per person, irrespective of whether the person worked. After leaving the Senate having lost the Democratic primary in 1980, Gravel led an effort to get a United States Constitutional amendment to allow voter-initiated federal legislation similar to state ballot initiatives, arguing that Americans have the capability to legislate responsibly and the Act and Amendment his organization has authored would allow for American citizens to become "law makers". According to the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, Mike Gravel appeared as a speaker on his National Initiative for Democracy at the June 2003 conference of a Holocaust-deniers' publication, The Barnes Review [1]. On April 13, 2006, Gravel announced that he would, on April 17, become a candidate for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in the 2008 election."

OMF CHALLENGER!

4/13/2006 2:37:11 PM

^
it was a two part question chief

4/13/2006 2:43:31 PM

I figured you knew the answer to that one.

Probably the same reason that Dennis Kucinich & Al Sharpton ran last time.

4/13/2006 2:48:45 PM

Dennis Kucinich was a fucking badass.

One of the few dem candidates I could really get behind.

4/13/2006 2:50:46 PM

Voilà.

4/13/2006 2:52:12 PM

i totally wanted kucinich to win, and dean right behind him

this gravel guy seems aight

4/13/2006 4:18:02 PM

As far as I know, Kucinich is a good guy personally, but politically, he's a scourge. I have no idea how anyone of his political leanings could get elected anywhere in America, much less have his name even used in the same sentence with the words "Presidential candidate."

4/13/2006 4:21:32 PM

I think we can go out on a limb, and say that Mike Gravel will not be our next President.

4/13/2006 4:28:59 PM

MIKE JONES WHO?

4/13/2006 4:33:49 PM

^ exactly what i thought

4/13/2006 4:37:22 PM

Quote :

"FIRST DEMOCRAT TO ANNOUNCE FOR PRESIDENT Thu Apr 13 2006 11:15:08 ET By Joe Lauria NEW YORK -- Mike Gravel, a former U.S. senator from Alaska, will next week become the first Democrat to formally declare his candidacy for president. Nearly two years before the Iowa caucuses kick off the presidential campaign, Gravel will announce his bid to become the Democratic White House hopeful at a news conference Monday at the National Press Club in Washington. He will file his papers today with the Federal Election Commission. It is believed to be the earliest in a campaign season that anyone has ever filed to be a candidate for president. “The thought of getting out there early, right now, is really the big tactic for me,” Gravel said in an interview. He vowed: “Once I’m out there and people see the issues I’m raising, it will resonate with people.” Gravel served in the Senate from 1969 to 1981, during the turbulent last years of the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal. He is hoping voters respond to his anti-war stance, drawing on the parellels being made between Vientam and Iraq. Gravel is perhaps best known for staging a one-man filibuster leading to the end of the military draft as well as for reading the Pentagon Papers into the record at a hastily arranged Senate committee hearing at the end of June 1971. A day after he did so the U.S. Supreme Court lifted the Justice Department’s prior restraint on the publication of the papers in the press. Gravel later lost a Supreme Court decision in spring 1972 to allow publishing the classified documents in book form by Beacon Press in Boston. The Nixon administration chose not to prosecute him or Beacon and publication went forward. The court had ruled that Gravel had immunity from prosecution only within the confines of the Senate chambers. The former senator said he decided to run for president about a year ago because of his anger over Iraq and after friends urged him to use the chance to push his two main policy goals: direct democracy and a revamped federal tax code. Gravel advocates a constitutional amendment and federal statue establishing legislative procedures for citizens to make laws through ballot initiatives on most national and local issues. “The American people are frustrated with the level of dysfunction of government,” Gravel said. “And if you ask the American people, they want to be empowered. But people are giving their power away on Election Day to politicians.” He supports the Fair Tax, which would eliminate the IRS and all corporate and individual income taxes, replacing them with a 23% national sales tax on new goods and services. “What we need to do to safeguard our economy is to turn Americans into savers rather than consumers,” Gravel said. “The United States, the biggest economy in the world, would become the biggest tax haven of the world,” he said, creating jobs and investment. The Fair Tax Act of 2005, backed by 55 Republican Congressmen, has stalled in both houses. Critics say it is based on unreasonable assumptions about how easily it can finance government. “Is it really possible to replace two trillion dollars of revenue on a sales tax? Wouldn’t the rate have to be excessively high?” asked Chris Edwards, director of tax policy studies at the Cato Institute. “That is a big question mark.” Gravel says he is also motivated to run by his opposition to the Iraq war and by a desire to reverse the level of secrecy in government. He is particularly critical of Democrats who supported the invasion. “They did not have good intelligence and they should have had the judgment to perceive this,” he said. ‘When the administration puts a classification on a document, members of Congress stand there like frozen zombies.” At 75, Gravel acknowledges that age will be made an issue in his campaign. “Now when people talk about age, let’s really look at age,” he said. “Nelson Mandela was in his mid-seventies when he became the head of South Africa, the chancellor who rebuilt Germany, Konrad Adenauer, was in his 80s and then my hero of all time, Pope John XXIII, who they put into power at 68, did more in four years than had been done in the Catholic Church for over 500 years.” Gravel sees Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York as the clear Democratic frontrunner. “She can be unseated if somebody would be aggressive,” he said. “I’ll challenge her and any other candidate on the issues. The Democratic Party has to stand for something if it wants power.” Pollster John Zogby, president of Zogby International, said Clinton will be vulnerable during the primaries, particularly over her support for the Iraq war and that a candidate like Gravel could have an impact. “It is clear to me that there are those Democrats on the left who are not going to accept a candidate moving to the center, like Hillary,” he said. “It suggests to me that a Mike Gravel should be taken pretty seriously: he is obviously experienced, obviously has those left wing roots that will matter to those on the left and … in this kind of atmosphere it may not take a hell of a lot of votes to make a difference.” Zogby said age would be a factor working against Gravel, however. Gravel grew up in Springfield the son of French Canadian parents who had immigrated to western Massachusetts in the 1920s. After two years of college he became a counterintelligence officer in post-war West Germany from 1952 to 1954. He later graduated from Columbia University. In 1957, he staked out to Alaska hoping for a political career in the soon-to-be new state. He lost three local elections before winning a seat in the state legislature and eventually his US Senate seat in 1969. That year Gravel started opposition in the Senate to nuclear weapons testing on the Alaskan island of Amchitka, spurring a protest movement out of which Greenpeace was established. Since leaving government in 1980 Gravel has been a real estate developer, consultant and founder and head of the Democracy Foundation, which promotes direct democracy. Gravel acknowledges he’s an underdog but says the Democratic primary debates will allow voters to get to know him and his policies. He is setting up a national organization and plans to get on all 50 ballots. “How fast it builds or when it crescendos I don’t know,” Gravel said. “But I do know this: Having run with nothing and having gone to Alaska, and twelve years later finding myself sitting in the Senate, I think anything is possible.” Joe Lauria is a freelance journalist who writes for the Boston Globe, the Sunday Times of London, Independent Newspapers of South Africa and other publications. "

seems like a bad-ass.

4/13/2006 4:52:12 PM

a democrat in favor of a flat tax? im confused

4/13/2006 5:10:22 PM

^
don't be, it's pretty much proof that the FairTax is a dumb idea...

4/13/2006 5:21:14 PM

I'm a Republican and I'm against the FairTax too.

A Flat Tax would be AWESOME!!! If he is a democrat and runs on a platform of implimenting a Flat Tax I'll campaign for his ass.

4/13/2006 5:33:11 PM

why are republicans against the fair tax? its even more regressive than the flat tax, you guys should be jumping for joy.

4/13/2006 5:39:20 PM

the "FairTax" is just a segue for more social engineering by teh g0v, it's a long-time fantasy of teh L3ft despite its recent embrace by economically illiterate "conservatives" -- when 100% of government revenue is raised through sales taxes, the forces that conspire to "modify," "adjust," or "improve" it in the name of the "public welfare" will be huge...

at least with an income tax there is always a permanent check on how excessive the government can get with it, b/c just about everyone hates April 15th 

4/13/2006 7:35:06 PM

i think im missing something.

4/13/2006 7:39:22 PM

^^i'd hope for the opposite...with nobody getting refunds and stuff, any tax increase would be directly felt by everyone. no way to sweep it under the rug.

4/13/2006 7:55:13 PM

Quote :

"He supports the Fair Tax,"

Quote :

"A Flat Tax would be AWESOME!!! "

Keep in mind that Reagan's Tax cuts basically was a flat tax. Over the years, lobbyists and politicians have contorted it into the horribly confusing mess you get to deal with this week.

Quote :

"with an income tax there is always a permanent check on how excessive the government can get with it,"

Huh? The income tax is one of the very things that has allowed the gov't to confuse us to the point that the all-time record for spending was hit recently. Politicians use the current income tax to punish their enemies and reward their friends.

Part of the FairTax is the elimination of the 16th amendment. That means no more income tax...you get your whole paycheck..no fed tax, no social security, no medicare taken out. And it will be much more obvious when politicians start raising the sales tax or removing lobbyist's products from the tax. They can do almost any amount of screwing around with the federal tax code now, and you'd never know it.

Quote :

"its even more regressive than the flat tax, "

The prebate system removes the poor from all fed tax responsibility. The more you spend, the more tax you pay up to a limit of 23%.

4/13/2006 8:00:35 PM

Quote :

"EarthDogg: Huh? The income tax is one of the very things that has allowed the gov't to confuse us to the point that the all-time record for spending was hit recently. Politicians use the current income tax to punish their enemies and reward their friends. Part of the FairTax is the elimination of the 16th amendment. That means no more income tax...you get your whole paycheck..no fed tax, no social security, no medicare taken out. And it will be much more obvious when politicians start raising the sales tax or removing lobbyist's products from the tax. They can do almost any amount of screwing around with the federal tax code now, and you'd never know it."

As if that doesn't already get done, particularly to a larger extent, with sales taxes.

And round and round and round we go again...how you people still manage to promote this thing with the decades of evidence against everything you say, from multiple states no less, is beyond me... 

4/13/2006 8:49:22 PM

^
If there are decades of evidence against everything I say, it should be easy to come up with one item of irrefutable proof that the FairTax couldn't work.

In fact sales taxes are very effective ways to collect funds. Your political profile suggests libertarian almost anarchistic leanings. Why, then, cling to the flat tax/income tax mess. Do you have a better method?

4/13/2006 9:01:42 PM

Quote :

" The prebate system removes the poor from all fed tax responsibility. The more you spend, the more tax you pay up to a limit of 23%."

23% of what? how is this determined?

4/13/2006 9:02:43 PM

^^
You need to study with Gamecat, your debating skills make you sound like a liberal

I go "there's plenty of proof every composite piece of Y has been manipulated," you respond "in that case it shouldn't take you long at all to find evidence that Y couldn't work"...so I can post what I was talking about, and you can go "but you've never disproved the whole Y!!1"...wtf, it's like debating Kris on the "merits" of Communism...

---

Quote :

"EarthDogg: Why, then, cling to the flat tax/income tax mess. Do you have a better method?"

"The answers you seek lie in the questions you ask..." 

4/13/2006 9:05:06 PM

Let's please leave all this FairTax bullshit in the thread specifically made for FairTax bullshit.

4/13/2006 9:06:01 PM

Quote :

"23% of what? how is this determined?"

OK Spooky, just let me answer this and I'll stop hawking the FairTax here. The 23% inclusive rate is the most you can pay on purchases of new products. There is no higher rate as with the income tax. The monthly prebate is eliminates any fed tax paid on items up to the poverty level. So most middle class people will be paying about 10-15% sales tax on new items when you calculate in the prebate savings.

So you cannot pay more than 23% on your purchases, only the super-rich will pay that rate, the majority of Americans will pay much less than that. And the poor will pay no fed taxes.

4/13/2006 9:17:58 PM

Quote :

"As far as I know, Kucinich is a good guy personally, but politically, he's a scourge. I have no idea how anyone of his political leanings could get elected anywhere in America, much less have his name even used in the same sentence with the words "Presidential candidate.""

I had no hope of him ever getting past the primary in the race, but I still liked his politics way more than any Democrat on the ballot.

4/13/2006 9:25:17 PM

considering a large chunk of the article was about the fact that this guy supports the FairTax, and since he is the first democrat that has formally declared his candidacy i want to figure out what he stands for.
because opposition to what bush has done since 2002/2003 is going to be a common theme.

Quote :

"OK Spooky, just let me answer this and I'll stop hawking the FairTax here. The 23% inclusive rate is the most you can pay on purchases of new products. There is no higher rate as with the income tax. The monthly prebate is eliminates any fed tax paid on items up to the poverty level. So most middle class people will be paying about 10-15% sales tax on new items when you calculate in the prebate savings. So you cannot pay more than 23% on your purchases, only the super-rich will pay that rate, the majority of Americans will pay much less than that. And the poor will pay no fed taxes."

i still dont understand how this prebate is determined.
under the current system you write down how much you earned and you pay a tax on it. a large part of the paperwork comes from determining how much you earned (after deductions and such). even with eliminating this how would a store determine which level of tax to charge you? or do you have to write down every bit of tax you pay and get it refunded to you?

4/13/2006 9:31:59 PM

If this guy even has a chance of winning the primary, then I'm going to change affiliation so I can vote in Democratic Primaries

Flat-Tax Rocks!
Oh, I thought he was a Flat-Tax guy, not a Fair-Tax lunatic. A 23% sales tax is unenforceable and would wreck the marketplace. A 23% flat-income-tax is actually much easier than the current tax system.

But it isn't my favorite, of course. My favorite is an Explicit-Value-Added-Tax. Just like in Europe, a VAT tax is easier to enforce and actually taxes everyone more fairly than income taxes, doesn't wreck the marketplace like a sales-tax, and can still be made explicit.

As everyone probably knows, a VAT tax is charged to all businesses based on their portion of the value added to their products. Example: Wal-Mart buys cheap radios at $20 a piece from the manufacturer, sells them for $30 a piece, for a total Value-Added of $10. At a VAT rate of 20%, wal-mart will then pay $2 in taxes on this transaction. However, to make the tax explicit, at the bottom of all receipts shall be printed the "total taxes paid on these items: $6"; namely, this $2 from Wal-Mart plus the $4 that came from all prior manufacturers.

This way, people will see what their government is taking away, while at the same time benefitting from all the ease and legality of the value-added-tax.

[Edited on April 13, 2006 at 9:53 PM. Reason : correction]

4/13/2006 9:50:38 PM

i know a flat tax is easier. but i dont think its better.

how is either one of these a democratic position?

4/13/2006 9:56:19 PM

Quote :

"how would a store determine which level of tax to charge you? or do you have to write down every bit of tax you pay and get it refunded to you?"

In answer to your question...
At the store, you would pay a 23% inclusive tax on any new product or service. Since the tax is levied only once, used items are not taxed.

The FairTax Act (HR25) sets out a formula for computing the poverty level based on gov't information. Using this formula, you would get a monthly check (or credit to a gov't issued debit card) that would cover the sales tax you would pay on purchases up to the amount of the poverty level.

The prebate amount depends on how many people are in your household. So for instance a family of four could spend up to $2100 per month tax-free since their prebate would be $491. A single person could spend up to $797 each month tax-free- his monthly prebate would be $183.

So you no longer have to file any more income forms. April 15 is just another Spring day. If you're good at saving and buying wisely, you can control your tax contributions more effectively than with the current system..and you don't have to pay an accountant to help you.

Quote :

"how is either one of these a democratic position?"

Democrats would like the progressitvity of the FairTax. The poor would pay no fed tax. Also, they would no longer have the regressive social security payroll tax deducted from their paychecks.

[Edited on April 13, 2006 at 10:21 PM. Reason : .]

4/13/2006 10:16:46 PM

i think this is a horrible idea

why dont we just remove the max level on fica paid instead?

4/13/2006 10:23:43 PM

That may provide SS with more money (also if you start charging FICA on investment income too) but it doesn't fix the income tax mess. You still have to financially strip for Uncle Sam every April 15th.

In 1913 the tax code was 2 pages and 3% of GDP. Today it's in excess of 20% of GDP and the tax code is more than 46,000 pages (including 481 separate tax forms). Also taxpayers will spend a cumulative 6.5 billion hours complying with code, and more than half of taxpayers will rely on professional preparation, costing them more than $200 billion.

This is ridiculous. The income tax doesn't need reforming, it needs trashing. The original 2 page tax was a flat tax, so we know what will happen if we try that again.

4/13/2006 11:15:46 PM

and i dont like it.

the country was not perfect in 1913, and I think its a much better place now than it was. Besides that useless argument(since no one on this board was alive then), the world is a different place now.
laissez-faire economics DOES NOT WORK. we know this. we also know that the soviet union failed miserably. lets learn from these lessons instead of arguing for a return to ignorance.

4/13/2006 11:28:03 PM

Quote :

"You still have to financially strip for Uncle Sam every April 15th. "

How is that different from having to "financially strip for Uncle Sam" with every purchase you make?

Unless you're talking about having to divulge income, in which case you're just fucking retarded.

4/14/2006 12:19:03 AM

Quote :

"Unless you're talking about having to divulge income, in which case you're just fucking retarded."

We prefer to be called "Intercoursely handicapped" thankyou.

But if you had your choice to pay your fed taxes without being forced to divulge your income and fill out a bunch of forms, wouldn't you take it?

4/14/2006 12:31:35 AM

I don't care if the government knows how much I make, kind of like how I don't care if my therapist knows I cry after reading the Soap Box every night.

As it stands, I spent about half an hour on my taxes this year, and I don't really have a problem with that.

4/14/2006 12:35:44 AM

^^ Uh, revolt, none of that has anything to do with tax reform. To argue that we should stop paying taxes would be lazei-fair, whatever. No one is saying that. What people are arguing is HOW tax revenues are raised, which is neither socialist/capitalist/corporatist/etc. Economic Philosophy doesn't tell you which tax system is best, only perceived deduction can deduce that.

Now, we all want a progressive tax system, everything on offer is progressive. The current system, the Fairtax system, the Flat-Tax system, and my EVAT system.

Problems:
Current tax system or any other form of income tax: every wage-earner must file a return with the IRS and pay a percentage amount, after deductions, of their reported wages
Costs/Benefits: doesn't tax criminals, doesn't tax liers, is the playground of every special interest, requires an army of people to police 100 million filers, eliminates personal financial privacy, encourages a black market for labor, the degree of progressiveness can be tailored easily, reduces incentives for work and investment

Fair-Tax system: Everyone gets a Pre-bate equal to their estimated taxes up to the poverty level, then all purchasers of new products must pay a fixed percentage of the total product cost
Costs/Benefits: taxes criminals and liers, eliminates most special interest, marginal number of people to police a mere 1 million filers (every retail business), restores financial privacy, eliminates the black-market in labor, rediculously encourages a black-market in goods, the degree of progressivity is fixed, restores incentives for work and investment

Explicit-Value-Added-Tax: Everyone gets a Pre-bate equal to their estimated taxes up to the poverty level, then all businesses must pay a fixed percentage of their Value-Added to the IRS
Costs/Benefits: taxes criminals and liers, eliminates most special interest, marginal number of people to police a mere 2 million filers (every business), restores financial privacy, eliminates the black-market for labor without creating a large black-market in goods, the degree of progressivity is fixed, restores incentives for work and investment, can easily be hidden from tax-payers if the "Explicit" part is abandoned

4/14/2006 12:43:36 AM

i disagree with you that all of these are progressive. the reason i say this is that it seems to me that a much larger portion of a poor persons "wealth" is spent every year on things that would be effected by a tax on goods instead of income.
i could be wrong on that though.

4/14/2006 12:48:15 AM

give me an egg

4/14/2006 1:11:38 AM

Well, 'Snark, I would prefer even your EVAT over the current system. I still prefer the Fairtax as does this poster:

Quote :

"Here's what The FairTAx book has to say (p.65): "If we were to pass the FairTax and eliminate all taxes on capital and labor, and tax personal consumption instead, we would be the only nation in the world whose companies could sell into a global economy with no tax component in the price system. (Most nations that rebate the VAT to their companies at export still have some income and payroll taxes in the price system.)" Boortz also notes that foreign companies would have an incentive to build their next production facility here, making more jobs available to Americans. VATs added at each stage of production hide tax costs in the price of goods; unlike the FairTax, the consumer has no idea how much of the price he pays is tax. Milton Friedman notes that while the VAT is the most efficient way to raise revenue for the government, it is also the most effective way to increase the size of government. Adding the tax once, upfront, makes it visible and hard to raise without attracting attention. The VAT system removes most of the tax from prices, but not all of it. The FairTax removes ALL taxes from production, making the American product very competitive."

4/14/2006 1:14:33 AM

Any type of flat tax, fair tax included, even with the prebates, is incredibly regressive.

4/14/2006 1:15:30 AM

Quote :

"even with the prebates, is incredibly regressive."

The FICA tax is incredibly regressive on the poor. It would be gone under the FairTax.

Even assuming that a poor family spends 100% of their income on food, clothing etc each month, they still would pay zero federal taxes. While someone who makes $100K and only spends $80K would pay about 15% in sales tax. The prebate adds back the progressivity.

4/14/2006 1:28:24 AM

Quote :

"Any type of flat tax, fair tax included, even with the prebates, is incredibly regressive."

How? You are going to say something about how the rich don't consume every cent of their income, saving or investing a larger share. What I fail to see is why that matters.

my EVAT, and hopefully the Fair-Tax too, is applied to everything, not just cars and shampoo. It applies to factories, welders, computers, trucks, ships, everything.

So, when I invest my money, I am not putting my money in a mattress somewhere. I'm still buying stuff with it, which is taxed, just not consumer goods. So, when the EVAT or Fair-tax is charging 20% I will pay 20%.

Now, financial instruments (such as stocks and bonds) are a little more difficult to trace. Suffice to say, if GM sells me stock, it is going to (hopefully) use the money to buy equipment and hire employees. This equipment will, of course, have been taxed. You are right, however, I am escaping the tax in-so-far as I use the money to hire employees. This is a marginal issue, I suspect, because the vast majority of investments in America go towards the purchase of capital goods (according to the link below, the ratio of capital to labor in some industries is rediculously high).
http://www.bis.org/publ/cgfs19boc3.pdf

Even thus, the tax is still not regressive. People below the poverty level are being taxed at a negative rate, people at poverty are being taxed at a zero rate. No ammount of "non-taxed savings" is going to make your tax payments negative as long as you buy a single new car.

4/14/2006 10:23:44 AM

"Who is Mike Gravel?" doesn't work nearly as well as "Who is Mike Jones?"

But yeah...this guy sucks.

4/14/2006 12:36:44 PM

bttt for guth

4/29/2007 11:13:58 PM

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/04/26/democratic-candidate-debategravel-some-of-these-people-frighten-me/ (says democrats "frighten" him)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fFX4V23FVo&NR=1

http://youtube.com/watch?v=1gMlHv2lDqA

He's pretty bold. I don't know anything about his politics, but from that video, he doesn't seem like a bad guy.

[Edited on April 29, 2007 at 11:19 PM. Reason : ]

4/29/2007 11:18:50 PM

i dont like fairtax but i really want to vote for this guy now

4/30/2007 6:18:57 AM

Quote :

"restores financial privacy"

Why is financial privacy a concern?

If somebody's getting rich, I'd just assume somebody else know about it.

Quote :

"LoneSnark: Now, financial instruments (such as stocks and bonds) are a little more difficult to trace. Suffice to say, if GM sells me stock, it is going to (hopefully) use the money to buy equipment and hire employees. This equipment will, of course, have been taxed. You are right, however, I am escaping the tax in-so-far as I use the money to hire employees. This is a marginal issue, I suspect, because the vast majority of investments in America go towards the purchase of capital goods (according to the link below, the ratio of capital to labor in some industries is rediculously high)."

Okay, I'm pretty uneducated here. But I'm going to try and ask a question that makes sense.

So, like, under the Fair Tax, if I'm totally loaded and decide to make an investment and make a bunch of money off it--will the money I make be taxed? Or am I taxed when I make the investment? Are people taxed on this shit under the system we use today?

4/30/2007 7:38:56 AM