Simple Utah Mormon Politics

The third plank of the Communist Manifesto supports "abolition of all rights of inheritance".  Many Americans make the claim that the Federal Estate Tax is an attempt to do just that. But how can it possibly accomplish nefarious Marxian designs when it affects only a very tiny minority of Americans?

Here goes Don Quixote Staheli again, tilting this time not against the voucher windmill, but against the current income tax system in the United States. I haven't done a whole lot of study on it yet, but this is my announcement that I support a Consumption Tax to replace the Internal Revenue Service. My brother is an accountant, so he probably won't really like this post too much, but I support a consumption tax instead of an income tax. There, I said it. So I submit to you, the Committee of the Whole , my initial ideas on a consumption tax. (That way, if I have any hair-brained ideas, I can change my mind!! ;-) ) I know it's not an easy proposition. Because after all, there is still the behemoth known as the IRS. Any Consumption Tax would probably need a Constitutional amendment at the same time to repeal the 16th Amendment. Ron Paul reminded us of this a couple years ago: One tax reform idea tacitly endorsed by Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan calls for a ...

If you knew that a primary source of your problems was over-regulation of your life, would you care? Well, it is. For those of you who already realized this--never give up in thinking that you can get government to stop trying to suck you dry. We're going to play a word association game. I'll ask a question, and you give me a one-word answer. Question #1: Why are so many people losing their jobs? Why is it harder for this generation to make ends meet? Did you guess regulation? Excellent! The New American shows the numbers behind the pain . The U.S. economy, once a flourishing free-enterprise colossus, is now a dying Gulliver, thanks to thousands of strangling Lilliputian regulatory cords. “The total regulatory burden on manufacturers is estimated at $162 billion,” the National Association of Manufacturers reported... “This represents an increase of 10.2 percent since 2000,” NAM reported, noting that this burden is a major contributing factor to the continuing loss of Ame...

As painful as it will be, I think the best thing for America's long-term energy future is an increase in the gasoline tax. My wife and I have a big Mormon family, so we have a big Mormon wagon--an SUV. We calculated the cost to drive the thing a couple months back, and it shocked us. At least 25 cents per mile. And that's just for gas. So it is with some trepidation that I agree with Jay Evensen of the Deseret News that we need to raise taxes on gasoline. ...increasing [the gasoline tax], with the extra money going to encourage alternative fuels, would be a good way to begin weaning the nation off its dependence on foreign oil and to take power away from oil-rich despots. As I discussed the article with my wife, she made an interesting observation. If it meant producing our own fuel rather than relying on the unpredictability of world markets, she would be completely in favor of paying four dollars for the alternative fuel equivalent of a gallon of gas instead of three d...