the proposed solutions assume people pursue their interests rationally, which is false. most add-a-tax and free-market arguments seem to suffer from the same faulty foundation.

yet more ideas on what to do about the economy

not that this is necessarily the answer to improving tax laws... but i love the idea of drastic simplification and removal of loopholes (humorous note: the page title mentions Democrats, but this happens to be the "Republican" page ;)

eliminate state taxes? interesting. yes, why not try an experiment

this country's tax laws are a tangled mess. i think it would make more sense to have a tax with no possible exceptions or deductions. if we want to help people under certain circumstances, let's just hand them cash or support.

is anyone else tired of the world being set up as a never-ending pile of exceptions? :-/

i think the spirit of this is on target... matching the original intent of a federal government put in place solely to protect our rights.

however, i believe we need to develop an effective alternative means of coordinating and paying for large-scale projects and programs *before* the federal government can be relieved of that responsibility (and therefore the obligation to raise funds through income taxes).

keep the horse ahead of the cart, so to speak :)

while this sounds like a good simplification, the original designers of the u.s. appear to have intended a small and efficient federal government... and let individual states handle the rest. therefore, continuing to fund a gigantic expensive federal government (that "handles everything") may be a fundamental mistake, and may lead to continued erosion of our constitutional rights.

U.S. Founding Fathers' Original Tax Plan
We seem to have gotten *way* off track. How do we get back on it?

Theft By Deception - Deciphering The Federal Income Tax - 87 min.

Amazing. Cut through the tedious intricacies, and this is simply amazing.

This excellent documentary shows that the U.S. Constitution denies congress the power to impose federal taxes on our income. When studied closely, the tax codes themselves yield evidence of tampering to obscure this limitation. (Shades of Wikipedia)

According to thorough and methodically presented evidence, U.S. citizens have been illegally paying federal taxes for several decades.

I'm entirely in favor of funding things we as a people deem critical and important... but it appears that federal income taxes are not the means we are supposed to use to raise those funds. Fixing this error will require a lot of further dialog.

what an amazing turn of events. money from the era of the gold/silver standard is not entirely compatible with modern currency, but it's still legal tender, and is still circulating! :D let's "hope" not too many people find out about this loophole before the fed/treasury can outlaw/confiscate, er, retire all gold & silver coins ;)