A friend of mine often emails me articles and his opinions on the craziness of government.  He humors me and allows me to post it here on my blog. (Past post)  So here is another anonymous guest post from a friend.

Raise taxes now — the elders of the economy say so

Greenspan, no fan of big government and an initial backer of the Bush tax cuts, allows that higher taxes now could lead to slower economic growth, but has said that chipping away at the deficit is more important.

Why not just reduce spending? Wow. I should be an economist. Robert Gates seems to get it. Why can’t Congress?

The White House and most Democrats have argued for keeping the tax cuts in place for most households, but letting them expire for those earning more than $250,000, about 2% of the country.

Classic. Now that they’re in charge the tax cuts seem like a brilliant idea so long as we redistribute the wealth from those that earn it to those that don’t. And we can do that, you know. Just write it down and get a bunch of your friends to vote for it. It’s like robbing from the rich to give to the poor, a modern day Robin Hood.

End of  Guest Post

Disclaimer of for the following: I work for a local government agency and have first hand experience in the government operations. This is in no way shape or form meant to be criticism of  my employer or management.

I couldn’t agree more with my guest.  We are constantly trying to find ways to increase revenue and rarely if ever try to cut expenses. Does any one besides Gates have a clue when it comes to economics and or accounting?  Debits must equal credits?  I learned this in high school how hard can it be?

Last week I read a great quote on government.  Unfortunately I don’t recall where I read that but it stuck in my mind.

“Government will never be efficient because they have the power to tax.”

It stuck in my mind because I am constantly baffled by the inefficiency in government and a complete lack of caring. I have countless experiences of how government waste grows.

My personal thought on it was this….

Government can never be efficient like a free market business because the powers that have the purse strings are elected. Elected officials rarely if ever do the monetarily sound simply because they need a gimmick to keep their jobs and get re-elected.  Add in the thought that endless taxation feeds all inefficiencies.

In business if I can’t make money through efficiency my business will fail.  This is absolutely not true in government because of the constant ability to acquire more funds through taxation.

I guess I am the optimist on this and believe that government can be run better through a few steps.

1. Require balanced budget.

This means debits equals credits.  No if ands or buts taxes must equal spending.

2.  Cut the fat…

I know that this will be unpopular with those who must get re-elected but its for the greater good.  There are so many places you can cut the fat its insane.   Here is one I tweeted about earlier this week.  Get angry: your american tax dollars are being used to train foreign IT workers to take your jobs.

There are so many things paid for by the government that are completely unneeded.

3. Allow government to earn money

Did you know that 9-1-1 provides private business with GIS Data as well as phone data such as address and phone number verification.  The data is purified through 9-1-1 via usage.  (We are required to verify every call to an address.) Read More about it here.

The telcom provider and the pubilc safety agencies collaborate to create an E911 Master Street Address Guide (MSAG), a database that cross-references every assigned telephone number, subscriber’s address and the block number ranges for every street, in every jurisdiction served by the telephone company. This allows the phone company’s computer to match the caller’s location with its public safety jurisdiction, and then route the call to the appropriate communications center.

This data is given to phone companies who then sell it back to use for us to use.  It is sold as a collaboration but we are charged a monthly fee to get this data.  Its data that we compile.  WTF?

Why are we charging businesses to do this and or for our data?  Google map data is provided ultimately by the government but yet Google is making billions off of it.  Utah Automated Geographic Reference Center (AGRC) is paid by the state of Utah for services but the data is collected by local government agencies.  AGRC sells our data. Cities and counties  create GIS data through tax records, 9-1-1 calls etc the data is collected and purified and then we are forced to give it away for free.

My center spends $10000 a year on software so that the media can view whats going on across the valley. The media uses this so that they can send reporters to cover news events.  Why?  These media outlets have people who monitor our scanners constantly.  This software isn’t used by the media much. Instead the media will call the 9-1-1 center and ask if anything is going on wasting time and resources of our 9-1-1 center.

Why not allow 9-1-1 to be funded not by a tax but by selling its data?

These are just 3 simple ideas that I have but will unfortunately these make me unelectable.

Here is an interesting read 105 Ways to cut the budget in 105 Days I know it applies to mostly state government but it still applies.

Today’s post is a guest post from a friend. I find it relevant because very soon the President and The Congress are going to ask for a Value Added Tax.

The VAT is essentially a national sales tax, levied in proportion to the goods and services produced and sold. But its delightful concealment comes from the fact that the VAT is levied at each step of the way in the production process: on farmer, manufacturer, jobber and wholesaler, and only slightly on the retailer. Source: See Link Below

I believe that as you raise taxes business slows and moves off shore taking it with it jobs. Giving money to the government doesn’t add more workers and it doesn’t build more wealth.  Its a parasite on America.  The rest of this post is from my friend.

As a spiritual man there are many facets of my life I accept on faith. There are things I simply accept as true, not because I have a deep understanding of them, but because I 1) feel they are true and, 2) have come to trust the source based on prior experience.

Over the last five or six years I have become a casual student of economics in conjunction with my increasing obsession of all things political. During my studies I have stumbled upon the Ludwig von Mises Institute, “the research and educational center of classical liberalism, libertarian political theory, and the Austrian School of economics”.

I have developed a deep respect and appreciation for the men who have pioneered the Austrian School of economics in America; namely Ludwig von Mises, and Murray N. Rothbard (1926-1995).

Recently I sent an e-mail endorsing the value-added tax as the most fair and equitable taxation system in the world today and suggesting that the United States would do well to move into the 21st century by abolishing the existing tax code in favor of this system.

Today I read Rothbard’s article The Value-Added Tax Is Not the Answer first published in the conservative magazine Human Events on March 11, 1972.

In that article Rothbard describes his disdain for the system in very basic and abstract language riddled with opinion. No where does he cite statistics or sources. It is primarily a moral objection. I won’t pretend to understand all that is written in the article or all the ramifications of a tax code, but I have to tell you, that if Murray N. Rothbard doesn’t like it, it’s probably not good for you. At this point in my education I will accept that on faith.

So what is the answer to our tax woes? President Obama is seriously considering implementing a value-added tax on top of our already burdensome federal income tax. I believe the answer, as Rothbard surmises in this article, that the solution is not more taxes or creative taxes or shifting tax liabilities, but the simple reduction of expenditures. The tax code needs to be simplified and the burden needs to be distributed equitably. The system for taxation is less important than the fiscal irresponsibility’s of our government.

You won’t hear me talk of a consumption or value-added tax anymore. Thought you should know.

My Friend…

We have all heard that there is no escape from Death or Taxes.

As the sour economy continues and states are struggling to balance bloated budges, they look to find creative “no harm” taxes.  For some reason the boneheads in government think that taxes increase economic output.  This is a huge fallacy. Stealing business revenues for elected officials’ pet projects kills jobs. Look no further than California (high tax) vs Texas (low tax) in the battle for economic growth.

Anyway that’s a different argument…

States starving for a new source of slop at the free trough of out of state businesses are looking towards the internet as the panacea for the aches of a poor fiscal policy. The latest target of creative government funding is taxing out of state retailers. States view these large businesses as a cash cow with no re-election impact. The states’ biggest online target is Amazon.

The online retailer Amazon is currently embattled with several states over sales tax. Past customer data seems to be a target of North Carolina.  Apparently North Carolina has the balls to go after anyone and everyone who has made a purchase from Amazon since 2003.  Amazon had to counter with a lawsuit to block the North Carolina Department of Revenue from getting its hand on this data.

I personally find this very interesting because Utah has been trying to tax internet purchases for the last 10 years.  Utah has been very unsuccessful at this game. The only weapon they have is Utah’s use tax which levees a sales tax on most catalog and internet purchases but also includes magazine subscriptions. I am worried that Utah might get the same idea as North Carolina.

We recently discovered that Utah has no problem with circumventing the Constitution’s 4^th Amendment protection in online activities via state laws. I can’t wait to see if this revives Utah’s lust for more cash.

I don’t understand why government officials can’t be more frugal. Look at how complicated and bloated the Federal Government budget is here.

The thing that I find scary is at what point is my privacy protected?

Apparently my online activity, my cable, my cell phone and now my customer data isn’t protected from the government. No longer are my habits anonymous to them. Pretty soon I see laws telling me what books and movies I can read.  Just read Amazon’s statement in this lawsuit.

The North Carolina Department of Revenue (the “DOR”) is demanding that Amazon turn over the name and address of virtually every North Carolina resident who has purchased anything from Amazon since 2003, along with records of what each customer purchased and how much they paid. If Amazon is forced to comply with this demand, the disclosure will invade the privacy and violate the First Amendment rights of Amazon and its customers on a massive scale. But the DOR does not need personally identifiable information about Amazon’s customers in order to audit Amazon’s compliance with state tax laws.All it needs to know is what items Amazon sold to North Carolina customers and what they paid, and Amazon has already provided that information to the DOR.

“If we run into such debts, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds, as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses; and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they now do, on oatmeal and potatoes; have no time to think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account; but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers.” – Thomas Jefferson

Seems like today doesn’t it? Our government taxes its citizens into oblivion and into revolt. I sometimes think we aren’t far away from this today.

Another quote in relation to Jefferson’s thought:

“Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.” -P. J. ORourke

Senate budget chairman Lyle Hillyard, R-Logan, and president of the Utah Taxpayers Association, Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper would like to raise your taxes on food.

In separate statements both men have said they want to restore the food tax.

Hillyard told the Cache Valley Daily that if all of the state sales tax was put back on unprepared food, it could raise about $140 million. Source: Deseret News

Writing in his column for the Utah Taxpayer newsletter, Stephenson said legislators made a “major mistake” when they, over a two-year period, cut the state sales tax on unprepared food.

He said Huntsman pressured lawmakers to cut the food tax to fulfill a promise made in his first campaign.

Stephenson said House members were inappropriately influenced by former Speaker Greg Curtis, who, according to Stephenson, told him that Curtis wanted it to be mentioned in his obituary that he cut the food tax.

“Neither of these reasons should have been sufficient to win passage of the reduced tax on food,” Stephenson wrote. Source: Deseret News

The Senators believe that lowering the tax on food was a bad idea.  Was it a bad idea or morally wrong?

I believe that taxing food is wrong. I don’t believe it was a bad idea to lower the tax on food.

What is wrong is how poorly the Senators have handled the budget.  If the lawmakers would quit creating an entitlement state maybe we could lower taxes.

There is an estimated $900,000,000 short fall in the Utah state budget next year.  Whoops… Apparently the State shouldn’t suffer the pains of tightening their budget but instead believe that the people of Utah should have to tighten their budgets because of poor budgeting and raising taxes.

I understand that tax revenues are down drastically due to a crappy economy but who is responsible for this budget shortfall? Is it the people? Or is it the people running the budget? I think it was the government.

Lower taxes give the people money to spend. Less government regulation gives businesses and opportunity to grow and succeed. More commerce creates more jobs and both create more revenue for the government. Create opportunities for entrepreneurs and businesses and  your revenue problems with go away.

Senator Lyle W Hillyard has been in the Utah legislature since 1981. I think it’s time to send him into retirement.  He has been in office too long when he thinks he can just ask for a tax increase.  I ask that he needs to drastically cut the state budget. I hope that by trying to the raising of the food sales tax it becomes an albatross on his reelection. If he wants to raise taxes let’s put a tax on lawyers.  Utah seems to have too many lawyers floating around.

Senator Howard Stephensen has been in office since 1993 and both need to go. On Stephensen’s re-election website, there appears to be a blatant campaign lie…”Fighting to reduce your taxes, not add more!” Maybe its Fighting to reduce all your taxes but Food, not add more. Whoops that’s awkward.

Maybe since these two elected officials weren’t part of a solution they are part of the problem. It’s time to tell them bye bye. Why don’t we all send them a little bye bye note.

Senator: Lyle W. Hillyard

Email: lhillyard@utahsenate.org

Counties: Cache, Rich

Phone: Home: (435) 753-0043

Office: (435) 752-2610

Address: 595 South Riverwoods Parkway Suite 100

Logan, Utah 84321

Senator Howard A Stephenson

Email: hstephenson@utahsenate.org

Counties: Salt Lake, Utah

Phone: Home: (801) 576-1022

Office: (8010) 972-8814

Address:1038 East 13590 South, Draper, Utah 84020