Freedom Has No Ties To Racism And Fear

This is a blog in which the central theme is freedom.  True, the majority of posts deal with the taxation of earned income which, to me, is more a liberty issue than a government revenue issue.  But, considering that broader, central theme of freedom, have you ever wondered why this blog is not filled with links to, and articles from, so-called "freedom" websites?  Have you ever visited some of those websites?

Once in a while, I'll come across a link to an article from some "Libertarian" or "free-thinking" or "freedom" website, and I'll click to read the article.  Sometimes the article in and of itself is good and worthwhile (IMO), but then I start looking around at the rest of the site.  And what do I see?

I see an underlying racism.  I see fear.  I see extremism.  I see paranoia.  And I see a lot of commercial interests trying to make a buck off of that fear.

Truth to tell, none of those things have anything to do with freedom (ding!  ding!  ding!  ding!  ding!).  If one is really interested in freedom, one cannot be interested in holding to racist ideas.  Fear and paranoia have nothing to do with freedom.  And extremism binds one to a very narrow outlook on just about everything.  A narrow mind is not free.

Fear and paranoia should not be a substitute for vigilance.  Extremism should not replace reason.  Racism should not be mistaken for true brotherhood.

So, having read such-and-so article on said "freedom" website, I move on as if I'd never been there.

And that is why this blog has no links to other freedom loving websites, and no advertisements from manufacturers of backyard bomb shelters.

Have You Heard Of The Robin Hood Tax?

[from  http://www.robinhoodtax.org]

The big idea

Simply put, the big idea behind the Robin Hood Tax is to generate hundreds of billions of dollars. That money could provide funding for jobs to kickstart the economy and get America back on its feet. It could help save the social safety net here and around the world.  And it will come from fairer taxation of the financial sector.

This small tax of less than ½ of 1% on Wall Street transactions can generate hundreds of billions of dollars each year in the US alone.

Enough to protect American schools, housing, local governments and hospitals. Enough to pay for lifesaving AIDS medicines. Enough to support people and communities around the world – and deal with the climate challenges we're facing.

It won't affect ordinary Americans, their personal savings, or every day consumer activity, such as ATMs or debit cards. It's easy to enforce and tough to evade. 

This is a tax on Wall Street, which created the greatest economic crisis in our nation, and globally, since the Great Depression. The same people who have returned to record profits and bonuses while ordinary Americans, the 99%, continue to pay the price of their crisis.

So it's time for justice for ordinary families and businesses. For American families faced with a choice between buying food or paying the heating bill.

The Robin Hood Tax is just. The banks can afford it. The systems are in place to collect it. It won't affect ordinary members of the public, their bank accounts or their savings. It's fair, it's timely, and it's possible.

It's not a tax on the people, but a tax for the people.

California Defends Freedom

Jerry Brown Signs California Ban On Indefinite Detentions

The Huffington Post  |  By Shadee Ashtari Posted: 10/02/2013 6:05 pm EDT  |  Updated: 10/02/2013 9:00 pm EDT

Gov. Jerry Brown (D) signed a statewide ban on indefinite detentions into law Tuesday, prohibiting compliance with provisions of federal law. 

After receiving overwhelming bipartisan support in the California State Assembly, Brown approved AB 351, in effect banning any state assistance with federal enforcement of "indefinite detention" of vaguely defined "enemy combatants," including American citizens, without due process, as outlined in the the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act.

Among other points of legal controversy, President Barack Obama’s signing of the NDAA has sparked particular legal backlash over its provisions on indefinite detention, contained in section 1021. AB 351 now prohibits any future “local entities from knowingly using state funds ... to engage in any activity that aids an agency of the Armed Forces of the United States in the detention of any person within California for purposes of implementing Sections 1021.”

A number of states have raised legal challenges against the NDAA, claiming that aspects of the law violate First Amendment and Fifth Amendment rights. According to PolicyMic, section 1021 has also been denounced internationally, with opposition from the ACLU, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Cato Institute and the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The ACLU also views the NDAA’s scope of indefinite detentions as “particularly dangerous because it has no temporal or geographic limitations, and can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield."

According to the Tenth Amendment Center, state Rep. Tim Donnelly (R-San Bernardino), author of AB 351, said, “Indefinite detention, by its very definition, means we are throwing away the basic foundations of our Constitution.” Donnelly also claimed AB 351 "will prevent California from implementing indefinite detention for any reason.”

Although Alaska and Virginia have passed similar legislation, California’s AB 351 goes further in using the restriction of state funds to accomplish a broader prevention of indefinite detention. The state's successful passage of the more aggressive ban on assistance with federal indefinite detentions -- built on bipartisan support -- may indicate a better chance of success for other states launching legal battles against controversial NDAA measures.

Freedom From Millionaires

Here's an idea to kick around: income limits.

Going forward, anyone running for political office cannot have earned more than $75,000 in a single year, and most of that money must have come from working a job (as opposed to gifts or investment income).  While in office, no one will make more than $75,000 a year.  If an individual makes a penny more in a year while in office, they will be removed from office the day it is proven, with no pension.  If someone has left office on good terms and is receiving a legitimate pension, that pension will cease if it is found that extra income had been gained while in office.

Because it would be unfair to force people to cancel what investments they may have when entering a political campaign and for the duration of their time in office, whatever investment income they might receive while in office would be deducted from their pay as an office holder.  Yearly income while in office, from whatever source derived, will never exceed $75,000.  Gifts in any form are strictly forbidden.

If we want to stop having our lives run by millionaires, we need to stop putting them in office.

And think about it: though it is not in writing, in practical terms we already have income limits in place, and those limits serve to exclude the commoners from ever becoming decision makers.  Political offices are filled with members of "the Club," and they only want to work with fellow members.  

If we want to continue having this country run by people who can only think and act like millionaires, whose primary interests are those of themselves and other millionaires, then the solution is easy - change nothing.

"Eliminate the Loopholes!"

I often recommend that everyone in the world read Barlett & Steele's "America: Who Really Pays the Taxes?"  You may be interested to know that the book is not anti-income tax - it is a non-partisan, very enlightening look at our current tax system.

It is a testament to the power of habit that even the authors, esteemed investigative journalists who grew up under this system and have known nothing else, missed a critical piece to the problems that plague the income tax.  The information contained in this important book helped me understand that it is a very naive position to talk of eliminating the loopholes in the income tax, the loopholes that allow the wealthiest Americans to avoid the tax altogether.  It is naive when you understand that the income tax system is ITSELF the loophole.

Read the book.

What We Need Around Here Is An Income Tax!

Check out this recent story on income inequality.  It's worth noting that a drastic rise in income inequality through America's Gilded Age is what stoked the push for the income tax over a hundred years ago.  This incredible plan to redistribute wealth was set up to affect only the richest 1% of the population - only they were to pay an income tax when it first went into effect in 1913, certainly not the average working man or woman.

The people who actually put this plan in place were the richest 1% (red flag?).  The people who believed that this plan would be some sort of equalizer were the 99% (surprise!).  Time for our hundred-year reality check:

In 2011 (I don't yet have numbers for 2012), over 100,000 of the wealthiest Americans dutifully filed their tax returns and paid zero income tax.

In 2012, I earned income at well below the poverty line.  I filed my return and had to pay over $400 in income tax or face fines, confiscation of property or rights to property, or imprisonment.

Equalizer my ass.

Tax Man Assumes, Makes An Ass Only Of Himself

I'm a bald eagle!  I pay my taxes!
Chirp, chirp!

So, I filed my 2012 federal income taxes, and I have to say I remain highly unimpressed with this system of taxation.  It makes some very broad assumptions and makes one particular judgment that I find to be hopelessly unfair and infuriating.

First, I will remind the reader that 2012 was my first year back from a deployment which took me away from my business for a year.  This was a year of rebuilding.  Fortunately, but unbeknownst to the Tax Man (not that I was hiding it), I was able to bring a large portion of what I made overseas home – a cushion to help make ends meet as I went about the task of rebuilding my piano tuning business.

As I filled out the forms for 2012, it was clear that the IRS was not interested in what I did or did not bring home from my deployment.  The IRS was not interested in the state of my business, whether it was steady over the last few years or being built up again after a year away.  None of those questions came up on the 1040, the SE, or the C-EZ.  The only thing they wanted to know about 2012 is how much money I made.

Technically, I file as a single individual.  For all practical purposes, I am also helping to support two children – materially, emotionally, developmentally.  Note that I included materially.  However, due to how things went down for me during the divorce, not having the benefit of a lawyer, I technically have to file as a single person.

I say this because for 2012, my total income fell below the poverty line for a single individual, and well below for a household of three which, again, for all practical purposes, is much closer to the reality based on how much time my kids spend with me.  At this point, what is left from the deployment, that cushion, will cover one month’s rent plus one month’s child support.  That’s all that is left.  What the Tax Man compelled me to fork over two days ago is a relatively small amount to most people.  However, relative to me and my situation, it wasn’t a small amount.  The assumption has been made that I didn’t need it.  But I did.  I do.

The IRS judges that the amount they squeezed from me is needed by the government.  Isn’t that what taxation is all about?  The government needs it.  And if they don’t get it, they can seize the working man's bank account and everything in it to settle the bill, and tack on interest and penalties to boot. But bless their bureaucratic hearts, over 100,000 individuals and families that made more than $250,000 last year will pay zero taxes on their income (if the figures from 2011 are any indication), and the IRS has judged that the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars that represents is somehow not needed.  Why?  Because an expensive CPA or tax attorney crossed some t's and dotted some i's, keeping tens of millions of dollars from the Tax Man’s grasp.  Oh, and those are the Tax Man’s own forms those guys are filling out, printed up in his own office.  It’s as if the Tax Man is telling these wealthy people, “Here, fill this out.  This form is for you.  I don’t even want your millions.  But Henning over there has something I need desperately, and count on me to threaten his property and even his rights to property to get it.  And if that low-life fails to report his paltry income, into the slammer he goes!  Bwah, ha, ha, haaaaaa!!”

Yes, the judgment I find so infuriating: the government needs the little it can get from me (money it assumes I don’t need) to the point that it will threaten my property and very freedom, but it doesn’t need the millions from those who, by the stroke of a pen, are let off the hook.

Some of you may have heard me interviewed recently on a friend's podcast about taxation, and you may have thought something along the lines of: Well, he just needs to be a better business man, or, He needs to do a better job finding those deductions for his business, or things to that effect.  I would just say that, as a working man trying to feed myself and my kids, which is perhaps my highest responsibility to society, I don’t need the arrogant and uninformed assumptions of bureaucrats and legislators as to what money I need or don’t need (especially money I've earned), and I don’t need to be judged by my fellow citizens as to my business acumen or the dexterity with which I handle a tax form.  I shouldn’t have to have an MBA or be a CPA to go out and earn my living.  I define success in business as not having to ask for handouts to support me and my kids, and in that light, I am successful.  I'm out there making it happen.  At least I was smart enough to know I’d need that cushion coming home from deployment, and smart enough to not blow it on a brand new car or think I can afford that two-bedroom now.  And I’m smart enough to have stopped using credit cards years ago.  Everything I buy is paid for right there and then; no looking back, no interest.  I’m a "credit" to myself – I don’t need some faceless banker’s approval as a measure of my success.  Want to measure something?  Measure this.  [crude gesture]

Save your platitudes on fairness.  This system was put in place by the rich, for the rich (see: history).  The better we understand this connection, the clearer it will become as to why the millions who are in my situation have to put up with this crap.  And all this crap goes away without a tax on our earned income: the assumptions, the judgments, the inquisition, the squeezing, and the threats of fines, confiscation of property, and prison being unceremoniously and unapologetically shackled to earning an honest living - a fundamental human right.  There is a better way.  I’m looking for it.  I am convinced that part of the answer lies in our past (obviously, pre-income tax), and part of it lies with the creativity of those in the present.  If I find it, I’ll let you know.  You might help by looking around yourself.