Some may find this recommendation a bit far fetched or even insane… but hear me out on this. We are taxed on everything we earn, own, buy or sell. All the government would have to do is become a profitable buisness instead of leaching off tax payers. There is only one thing that would make that a possibility, atleast currently. The U.S government would have sole control of the energy sector and keep all of its profits. That would pay for what the government spends, plus some. We’d have money to spend on things like universal healthcare, free college, ect & delete the us national debt rather quickly. When the debts paid off you could even do what Alaska does with its residents and give every us citizen dividends. The us economy would be the strongest economy in a matter of years. Sure we’d have to sacrifice a few billionaires here and there, but every citizen in this country would be better off. This isnt an eat the rich scheme, this would allow every us citzen to experience the american dream.
I think it’s actually plausible to eliminate federal taxes (sort of, see below), but I disagree with the method you propose.
Having the government fund itself by assuming direct control of a lucrative industry won’t work long-term. The problem is that the people hired to run the industry, having no ownership stake in the capital value of its assets, will prioritize immediate gains at the cost of future value. Because the government-held assets will not be for sale, their capital value won’t even be knowable. With incentives in place to maximize immediate gains, and no good way to measure the damage done by short-sighted policy, such a scheme would be a race to the bottom.
It’s worth noting that your proposed method is basically what Venezuela did. They got a few years of prosperous socialism by running their oil industry as a public piggy bank, until it inevitably collapsed under the weight of government incompetence.
I suggest that, as long as we’re using worthless fiat currency anyway, congress should simply have the treasury print the budget. I know some people will correctly point out that running the money printer causes inflation, but it would still be an improvement on how things are now.
Currently, the Feds collect a huge amount of private funds as taxes, and then turn around and spend on a massive deficit. The “federal” reserve then prints enough to cover the shortfall, and charges interest on the money they conjured from thin air. In the current system, we have to pay taxes, we still have inflation from the deficit spending, and we get government debt with interest.
If we switched to directly printing the budget, inflation would be a little bit worse, sure, but we would be able to abolish the IRS entirely and the Federal government would have no reason to take on debt. The amount of red tape cut in the process of abolishing the IRS would dramatically lower the entry barriers on all business, and put tax attorneys out of work. The decrease in legal complexity would be a massive boon to small business.
Now, there should be a hard limit on how much money congress could print per year. Perhaps 10% of the median income multiplied by the number of adult citizens. By tying the government purse to median income rather than average income, you would strongly incentivize government to promote a large and wealthy middle class instead of allowing the centralization of wealth in a handful of oligarchs.
To go one step further, I would like to see congress publish many competing budget proposals on which each citizen would “vote” by directing their share of the money printer to their favorite one. That would give the people total control over the money printer, but severely limit the damage they can do with it.
Full nationalization of anything besides the central bank (which is needed and the root of our debt. End the federal reserve) causes bureaucratic bloat ajd inefficoency.
The government becoming a competitive player in the market is a different story. I believe if the government moved its resources and effort away from being an external regulatory agency and focused on being a strictly regulated interested party in several key industries (mecessities) wr could remove taxation and most regulation and bloat, as well as stabilize a truly free market economy.
I call it “interested party economics” and i will make a post in depth about it soon. I have a basic outline post up already.
The issue i see with this approach is that for an economy to work we have to have a value to it, even if its pretend like fiat. Printing a budget every year means there is no cap, even if we set one based in gdp or income, because those will fluctuate based on the value of the dollar, creating a spiral.
What we need more than anything is a removal of the fiat currency and a stabilizing market structure based on the specie or product the dollar is tied to. It has historically been precious metals because they are relatively finite, but it doesnt have to be. We could tie it to a lb of potatoes. We could say a lb of potatoes is worth 1 dollar and a lb of butter is worth 5 dollars. Potato and butter is a complete nutrition soirce for the human body, thereby tying our currency to literal life. This would set a real world price point in the market, affecting land cost, gas prices, food prices, and wages. The Spud is also a great name for a dollar.
I think that either
- Real money and a greatly simplified tax code
- Direct fiat funding (no direct taxes) with tight controls on the printer
could work.
I haven’t thought through the prospect of tying the value of a dollar to perishable food items. My gut says there will be problems with doing so, but I don’t know what they’ll be. Hopefully either you’ve thought it through, or someone smarter than us will chime in.
I do think that if we pick something on which to base real currency, it probably shouldn’t be precious metals at this point. Most of the gold is already owned by bad guys.
One option for a real currency basis is synthetic diamonds. They can be produced out of cheap materials, but it’s energy intensive enough that they’re a physical proof of work. While I’m at it, how about backing the currency with the nuclear arsenal?
Please consider my proposed Amendment. Vote for, like and forward the link if you agree. Have a Blessed Day, Fred Walker
Hi Fred. We know that government must have some funds in order to finance its lawful functions.
What form of financing do you propose as an alternative?
Please understand that the IRS should be restricted in what it can lawfully do. But that function is probably still needed, just better controlled.
This is not new. Before Amendment 16 all taxation had to be indirect and equal. Look at States like FL and TX where they don’t have State income taxes.
Tariffs can take care of the financial need of the government. That and taking taxes back to their origin of taxing corporations, not individuals. Income tax was never intended for employees to pay. Somewhere throughout time, corporations figured out how to make us pay their taxes and we just started signing on the dotted line.
The amount of tax we pay today is absolutely criminal. Especially, charging a tax like sales and property taxes that we pay with money thats already been taxed. Our money is being taxed into oblivion.
Hopefully, the wasteful government spending will be reigned in by the incoming administration. We waste WAY more than is required for operation. They waste our money on silliness that gives us absolutely zero value. For instance, are you aware that theres a congressional liquor store that WE pay for, so that the government can drink on the job?
The IRS is an unjustified entity designed to steal our money to pay for the government’s unresponsible frivolity under the guise of “safety” and “prosperity”.