A hundred lifetimes ago, there was a comedian/impersonator named David Frye, who put out an album called “A Nixon Fantasy”. Where is he now, when we need him the most?
The way the US Constitution originally envisioned tax collection was for the House to pass a budget, have it ratified by the Senate, signed by the President, and then apportioned to the States based on population. The States would collect their portions by whatever means they saw fit. The Treasury also had the ability to issue bonds and collect excise taxes on imports and exports.
This system worked pretty well for about a century, until 1913 when everything changed. At that point, the Federal Reserve took control of the financial system, Senators became the pawns of corporate interests and industrial fat cats instead of State Legislatures, and the IRS was formed to extract debt payments from each and every productive individual.
At this point, the system is pretty much irreversable. It would require unwinding the Fed mess, disbanding the IRS, killing off an entire industry (tax preppers), repealing three Constitutional Amendments, getting rid of the standing miliary, and repudiating the national debt. Not that any of it is a bad idea, but it ain’t gonna happen.
The global economy has become so entangled and intertwined that almost nothing is made in any one particular country. Nearly every product we buy has components from at least a half-dozen countries in a system designed to be inextrictably intermeshed to “level the playing field” with countries possessing fewer natural resources, but lots of idel hands.
The US federal government currently spends about $6 trillion per year, on tax revenues of $5 trillion per year ($1 trillion deficit), while paying about $3 trillion in debt service, plusgobs of unfunded commitments like Social Security and Medicare. This is excluding state, county and local spending/taxes.
All things being equal, the amount of excise taxes required to maintain those numbers would be mind-numbing. The cost all raw materials, components and finished goods would soar to levels even the Bumbledicks can’t imagine. Inflation would be in the triple digits. Companies would be shedding labor at rates that would make even the Great Depression blush. The economy would crater for all intents and puroses, as would the rest of the world that depends on the US as one of the larest consumer markets on the planet.
Just look what California has done by raising minimum wages in just a handful of secotrs. Apparently, the Bumbledicks live in a universe where increasing the cost of labor does not result in layoffs and higher consumer prices. When the costs of raw materials, intermediate goods, labor, and/or distribution go up, so do end-user prices. It is a fact of life written in titanium, since stone is too soft and impermanent.
In order for Trump’s plan to work, he would have to unravel roughly 99% of the federal government, slash Congressional salaries, repudiate the national debt, and end the public entitlements that everyone has come to rely on into old age. Then he could add a 1%, or maybe 2% excise tax and try to make the whole system work within that limit. He mighht have been able to pull it off with two consecutive terms, but a split administration compounded by the Bumbledicks having four intervening years to accelerate the Statum Profundus takeover makes it virtually impossible for him to even find the drain plug, much less drain the swamp. That window has shut.
The very best Trump can hope for at this point is to repeal all the federal laws that usurp States’ Rights, and then retire to Mar-a-Lago for mashed potatoes and the driving range for the rest of his days. Even that would take stacking Congress and the Supreme Court with right-minded folks in both the upcoming and mid-term elections. Beyond that would require turning what’s left of the country over to a new administration that would maintain the effort for another eight years.
The vast number of assumptions involved in this political calculus make it a virtual impossibility, even if 80% of the electorate went along with everythhing for the next 12 years. There is no magic Libertarian one-size-fits-all prêt-à-porter solutions that don’t involve severe hardships across the globe for at least the next decade. No one will knowingly and willfully choose that path.
Trump is not the hero we need, but he is the one we deserve. He does not have the constitution of an altruistic hero willing to sacrifice his life, liberty and treasure for The Cause. It’s one thing to go to battle with a few billions in your pocket and your kids set for life. It’s a whole different game to give it all up for the sake of generations he will never meet to bask in their laud and adoration. Somehow I don’t see him dumpster diving for pagpag, knowing that his great great grandchildren will have a better world.
While there is undeniable schadenfreude imagining 100,000 IRS employees in bread lines, and Federal Reserve governors lopping off their feet on street corners for pity and a dime or two, there is no candidate on the stage or in the wings who wold willingly destroy themselves, their families and their reputations to do what it takes to unwind the gilded cage we have built for ourselves. It will take a literal catastrophe of divine proportions to reset the social and political milieu so drastically.
Oh sure, Trump can close the border, build walls, deport a few hundred thousand illegals, appoint some folks to the Supreme Court who know how to read, influence the Congressional stew pot, and prolong the corporate take-over for another decade or so, but that’s all plasters and iodine on a festering gangenous wound. It addresses the symptoms, but not the cause.
Basically, we can get all the morphine we want to quell the pain of the tiger gnawing on our backside, but we are forbidden to acknowledge the tiger itself.
Trump is not a savior, nor is he capable of being one. He is a pragmatic marketeer, and a damn fine one, as his net worth will attest. He can sell ears to a donkey, and the donkey will thank him for it, but one would have to be willfully naive to think that 2028 will be a different world, shy of an ET invasion.
In theopium den of American politics, Trump’s tax plan looks spiffy. It introduces a fesh twist to the overall fantasy, but eventually we have to stumble out into the blazing Mumbai sun and jump in the Ganges for a quick rinse. Ultimately, though, we will find our pockets picked and our shoes nicked while we slept.
But hey! The dream was great while it lasted. Got a dime for another hookah full?
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Unfortunately, elections will never change a thing. At least with the electoral mess we have right now. Two sides of the same coin is just that--the same coin, and it ain't in your pocket or mine. The tree of liberty has been in need of a very deep watering for a very long time now. The only way out of the mess we the people have permitted this government to create is to dismantle the entire system an have a do over. Yes, like all changes in government it will be a long, hard struggle, but as in 76, it is needed, and has been for most of my life (77). One of the founders (Jefferson?) said that a true patriot was one who was willing to defend his country from it's government. Time for America to once again withdraw it's consent, and throw off the tyranny we have permitted to rule us.
"At this point, the system is pretty much irreversable. It would require unwinding the Fed mess, disbanding the IRS, killing off an entire industry (tax preppers), repealing three Constitutional Amendments, getting rid of the standing miliary, and repudiating the national debt. Not that any of it is a bad idea, but it ain’t gonna happen."
Excellent post, but I question this part just a little. I believe it is reversible, and will reverse, just not intentionally. In my mind inflation and a collapsing economy will do the heavy lifting of the reversal. Trust me, a part tof me hopes I am entirely wrong.