Say Anything Blog

The founding fathers would be rolling in their graves if they knew the current tax system in this country and how the democrats (and some rinos) want to raise taxes for welfare/universal healthcare/income redistribution. 

Does anyone remember that the founding fathers rioted because of a sales tax on tea?

Companies shouldn’t go to bed with the government because the government has herpes.  You can try your whole life but you’ll never get away from that one night.

The founding fathers would be rolling in their graves if they knew the current tax system in this country and how the democrats (and some rinos) want to raise taxes for welfare/universal healthcare/income redistribution. 

Does anyone remember that the founding fathers rioted because of a sales tax on tea?

Companies shouldn’t go to bed with the government because the government has herpes.  You can try your whole life but you’ll never get away from that one night.

dougee. Let’s have a tea party!

Does anyone remember that the founding fathers rioted because of a sales tax on tea?

It was not because they were opposed to taxes, it was because they were opposed to the colonial system where the colonies were being unfairly taxed because they had no representation in Parliament.  When the King needed money instead of taxing the people at home, he would raise taxes on the colonies.

So what was your point in bringing up the founding fathers?

Don’t think that’s a real Benjamin Franklin quote. Seems like a take on Tytler, and who knows if that attribution is right?

But as a principle, no doubt correct…

Actually, that is a fairly famous quote of Franklin’s from his Poor Richard’s Almanac.

I think the Tytler quote may actually be a fictional derivative of Franklin’s quote.

It was not because they were opposed to taxes, it was because they were opposed to the colonial system where the colonies were being unfairly taxed because they had no representation in Parliament.  When the King needed money instead of taxing the people at home, he would raise taxes on the colonies.

So what was your point in bringing up the founding fathers?

Hawk, nobody is saying the founders were opposed to taxes.  We are saying the founders were opposed to excessive taxation, and an excessive role of government in the individual’s life.

And on that fact we are exactly right.

The purpose of government shouldn’t be to do good, but simply to refrain from doing evil.

Hawk, nobody is saying the founders were opposed to taxes.  We are saying the founders were opposed to excessive taxation, and an excessive role of government in the individual’s life.

Thanks for clarifying my point rob.

Companies shouldn’t go to bed with the government because the government has herpes.  You can try your whole life but you’ll never get away from that one night.

I think the Liberals are good at spending other peoples money.

Check out:
Goon’s North Dakota Red Neck
Goon’s World

Thanks for clarifying my point rob.

Sure.  Didn’t mean to presume to talk for you, but I figured we were probably on the same page.

The purpose of government shouldn’t be to do good, but simply to refrain from doing evil.

Hawk, nobody is saying the founders were opposed to taxes.

Actually, dougee, they were opposed to taxes especially as they pretain to the individual believing that the earnings from ones toils belong exclusively to oneself.  That was why the 14th amendment had to be enacted to subvert the will of the founders.

One of the most important talents for success in politics is the ability to make utter nonsense sound not only plausible but inspiring. Barack Obama has that talent. We will be lucky if we escape the catastrophes into which other countries have been led by leaders with that same charismatic talent.
-Thomas Sowell

That was why the 14th amendment had to be enacted to subvert the will of the founders.

Of course you mean the 16th amendment.

Actually, dougee, they were opposed to taxes especially as they pretain to the individual believing that the earnings from ones toils belong exclusively to oneself.

The fact that they didn’t institute an income tax does not prove they would of been against one.  It just wasn’t a common way to tax people back than.  In fact the first modern income tax wasn’t used in Britain until 1798.  Some of them probably would of been against it.  But your assumption that the Founders were some monolithic group that all believed the same things is a little naive.

I don’t recall anything in original Constitution authorizing an income tax, nor anything in the Federalist Papers endorsing the idea.  Indeed, the purpose of the compromise worked out in the compromise that become our constitution was to limit the actions, authority, and scope of government… especially the federal government.

Dougee’s original comment is both historically and constitutionally correct… Hawk’s sly obfuscation notwithstanding.

“Capitalism is optimism monetized.”

It just wasn’t a common way to tax people back than.

And why not?  Because govt hadn’t grown into the grotesque, bloated, power-hungry entity that it is today, and social engineering pyramid schemes were unknown.
Taxes should be to pay for the legitimate expenses of govt, not to enrich and empower the political class.

If govt control of the economy were the way to go, the Soviet Union would be the richest, most powerful nation in the history of the world.

Thanks to Obama, America remains the only country where it is illegal to drill our own oil!

I don’t recall anything in original Constitution authorizing an income tax, nor anything in the Federalist Papers endorsing the idea.

Logic is not your strong point.  Not addressing something that has not been created is not a sign of opposition.  It’s not a sign of anything.

Of course you mean the 16th amendment.

Of course.  hawk, your argument doesn’t fly because if the founders had considered a tax on ones income it would have happened much ealier than it did.  A brief history..

It hasn’t always been this way, in fact, in the nation’s early history, very few taxes were imposed on the people of the United States. From the years 1791 up until 1802, the Government collected taxes on alcohol, carriages, sugar, tobacco, auctioned-off property, corporate bonds, and slaves, and this money was used to run the Government.

So what happpened to change it all? In order to pay off the debts that were incurred from the War of 1812, sales taxes were were imposed on gold, silverware, jewelry, and watches. Congress was good enough to do away with those taxations in 1817, and, instead, the Government was supported by collecting tariffs from imports brought into the country.

This continued on until 1862, when the government again needed money to support the Civil War effort. Congress then passed the nation’s first income tax law. It was based on a progressive scale, much like what is used today. The lowest tax rate was a flat three percent, and it applied to people who earned anywhere between six hundred and ten thousand dollars a year. The next highest tax rate was five percent, and it was levied on any income amount that exceeded ten thousand dollars. For people who earned a higher dollar amount, the rates were increased accordingly. The Act of 1862 was also the beginning of the Internal Revenue Service as we know it today. It started out as being called the office of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, but the Commissioner’s powers were pretty much in line with the powers that the IRS has today.

So almost 100 years elapsed before an income tax was even considered and then only as a temporary tax to pay off the war debt.

Of course, once the cookie jar is open the rats have a field day, which is where we are today.

One of the most important talents for success in politics is the ability to make utter nonsense sound not only plausible but inspiring. Barack Obama has that talent. We will be lucky if we escape the catastrophes into which other countries have been led by leaders with that same charismatic talent.
-Thomas Sowell

Of course.  hawk, your argument doesn’t fly because if the founders had considered a tax on ones income it would have happened much ealier than it did.

Even your brief history doesn’t start until after the Constitution was written.  The Constitution gives the federal government the ability to lay and collect taxes.  This were done through tarriffs, real estate, sin taxes etc. because these were the types they knew of.  The income tax wasn’t an option in 1787 because it was unknown.

It was the removal of the tax on tea that brought the unrest.
Cut the founding father smugglers profits with a cheaper higher grade product.

Does anyone remember that the founding fathers rioted because of a sales tax on tea?

Logic is not your strong point.  Not addressing something that has not been created is not a sign of opposition.  It’s not a sign of anything.

Leave it to an attorney to argue vociferously about the placement of a semi-colon versus that of a comma, while completely overlooking the point of the paragraph.  Leave it to a liberal to make up shit on the fly.

From Federalist No 12, commonly attributed to Alexander Hamilton:

Tax laws have in vain been multiplied; new methods to enforce the collection have in vain been tried; the public expectation has been uniformly disappointed, and the treasuries of the States have remained empty. The popular system of administration inherent in the nature of popular government, coinciding with the real scarcity of money incident to a languid and mutilated state of trade, has hitherto defeated every experiment for extensive collections, and has at length taught the different legislatures the folly of attempting them….

In America, it is evident that we must a long time depend for the means of revenue chiefly on such duties. In most parts of it, excises must be confined within a narrow compass. The genius of the people will ill brook the inquisitive and peremptory spirit of excise laws. The pockets of the farmers, on the other hand, will reluctantly yield but scanty supplies, in the unwelcome shape of impositions on their houses and lands; and personal property is too precarious and invisible a fund to be laid hold of in any other way than by the inperceptible agency of taxes on consumption….

A nation cannot long exist without revenues. Destitute of this essential support, it must resign its independence, and sink into the degraded condition of a province. This is an extremity to which no government will of choice accede. Revenue, therefore, must be had at all events. In this country, if the principal part be not drawn from commerce, it must fall with oppressive weight upon land. It has been already intimated that excises, in their true signification, are too little in unison with the feelings of the people, to admit of great use being made of that mode of taxation; nor, indeed, in the States where almost the sole employment is agriculture, are the objects proper for excise sufficiently numerous to permit very ample collections in that way. Personal estate (as has been before remarked), from the difficulty in tracing it, cannot be subjected to large contributions, by any other means than by taxes on consumption.

If there is a more common waste of time, and money, than a legal education, I am unaware of what it might be.

“Capitalism is optimism monetized.”

Bat One,

Do you even understand what you quote?  I think not.  It certainly doesn’t make the argument you intend.