- Aug
11
2012
My post yesterday on Mitt Romney's inability to deal with the deficit stokes Stan Gibilisco's fears that Romney-nomics will lead us to an economy-crushing, inequality-boosting value-added tax. Mr. Gibilisco hates the VAT so much that the lifelong Republican posts this video demanding that Romney swear off the VAT.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKnQB4fp3z0
Stan, you clearly need to expand your media empire to include podcasting. Give us more video from Lead!
One reason the value-added tax is a good idea only in the selfish minds of people like Romney: it hits poor people harder than rich people. As LK pointed out last week, the poor spend much more of their income on basic necessities. The Romney elites squirrel away more of their income in pots the VAT wouldn't touch. Romney's tax plan already redistributes more wealth to the rich and takes away from the rest of us ("Romney Hood," say Gibilisco and Obama—"Romney Hood.") Romney is naturally open to any tax plan that favors his peeps even more (as is Paul Ryan, Romney's running mate!).
President Obama has kinda-sorta said he could consider a value-added tax, too. But as the Cato Institute's Daniel J. Mitchell argues, a VAT proposed by second-term President Obama would go nowhere, because Republicans would scream, "It's a tax!" A VAT proposed by (jinx!) President Romney would have a better shot at passage.
Stan, I hope Mitt notices your video and gives us a straight answer on whether he'd impose a value-added tax. But even if he comments, I suspect we'll hear an opposite opinion from the same mouth the very next day.
(But one production note, Stan: don't shoot your stuff in Stellar Cartography! I keep looking at your awesome computer display in the background, mesmerized by the data, looking for SETI signals!)
6 Responses to “Voter Video to Romney: Vow to Veto VAT!”
First off, I have to say this tongue in cheek: Great idea, let's copy what Europe does, they are doing great aren't they. Do you want to turn the U.S. into Greece?
But in this case, they want to turn the US into Ireland, which is in just as bad of trouble for following a very similar plan to what Mitt is pushing (and coincidentally the very country where most U.S. corporate tax evaders shelter their untaxed profits).
Secondly, when Europe introduced the VAT, nobody got rid of their income taxes. So now they have both progressive and regressive taxes in place. Does that make sense?
It sounds so much better when you call it a "flat tax" to conservatives as that has been the talking point. Kind of like Ron Paul demonizing the Fed when what that really means is that he wants us to go back to the gold standard. Read up on that if you think it is a good idea.
If you want to talk about reducing the budget there are three things that need to happen: first and foremost let Tue Bush tax cuts sunset. Second, stop all the damned tax evasion and tax avoidance. Mitt has played lip service to this but mentions it nowhere in his tax plan and won't answer questions about it. Do we really believe him when he only pays 14% and his primary campaign issue is lowering taxes? (Seriously, who here pays 14% on their taxes?). Third, bring back the inheritance tax in a real way and apply it only to estates in excess of, say $20 million.
There are lots of other ways to give tax based incentives that will actually meaningfully decrease the deficit and provide stimulus other than cutting the rates by 20% across the board and making the code more regressive. Here are a couple I've heard tossed around on the FREAKING FOOTBALL message board I frequent: Give tax breaks to corporations that bring back jobs to the US from overseas, or even that invest in creating new jobs that don't come from overseas. (If you claim to be a job creator, I say prove it!). I'm not for lowering the corporate tax rate, but I would support a one time amnesty of 25% to incentivize repatriation of these profits that WERE EARNED IN THE U.S. but never taxed. After that we either start seizing assets or exclude these businesses from operating within our borders if they don't pay the applicable tax rates. Guess what, nobody in their right mind thinks there is actually a substitute for participating in our economy which almost makes up half the world economy, they WILL PAY TO STAY. If football fans can come up with ideas like that, why can't our politicians have a single original thought?
This is all a bunch of crap dreamed up by the .24% of Americans that contribute money beyond their personal individual limits (translation: contributors to PACS and SUPERPACS). It is so transparent and easy to understand I'm actually glad these clowns are proposing it so America wil gain some sorely needed understanding of the important economic issues we face during the debates for the only election Americans really care about: the Presidential election.
While Stan's monitor is impressive, I'm more interested in the rig on the desk. What you got there W1GV?
73's
KCOLRU
Hey, Cory, thanks for the plug! I'm working on my video personality, although I have to tell you that I intend to keep the old-fashioned, slightly seedy look and feel, and in fact run with it. And the silliness, too. Note the shirt, which says, "Stan: The Tyrannosaurus Rex." More on that in another blant, maybe, someday.
I would support a VAT on one and only one condition: That it be dedicated entirely, and forever, to socialized medicine (Medicare for all or "KucinichCare"). However, no one in their right mind believes that would ever take place. They'd suck the funds out and put them into the general coffers, and we'd just end up like Greece or France, except withoutuniversal health care.
Obama has it right: We face "Romneyhood" if we elect these guys, unless they really change their tune.
So as a pragmatic matter, I oppose a VAT, period. It would never be used responsibly by either party. The Republicans would use it to enrich the wealthy by filling the tax gaps left by getting rid of the capital gains tax, the dividends tax, the corporate income tax, and the estate tax; the Democrats would use it to expand government until it would pop up in our faces every time we make a move, and create paperwork burdens that would drive small businesses down even further than they already lie.
Here's one European idea worth emulating: Germany's law that limits the ratio of CEO pay to the lowest wage in a corporation (if what I heard on NPR yesterday is to be believed). Mr. Obama, are you paying attention?
Now for some technical details about the Nerd Cave at W1GV.
The display is a 46-inch, top-of-the-line Sony LED flat panel. I just had to do this to make my Nerd Cave really nerdy. Call it profligate spending! Shame on me! But it sure looks cool, don't it?
The radio is an IC746-PRO. I run 7 watts on PSK31 and 10 watts on CW, almost entirely on 20 meters, using a deck-mounted, capacitively loaded 22-foot vertical. (I have made videos about that equipment and posted them on my You Tube site.) The interface for PSK is a RigBlaster Pro. I also have a new computer that I bought when my old one died, with far more memory and storage than I would ever need for ham radio, but it's there to be cannibalized if and when my writing computer goes down.
Then there's an old notebook computer and an extra display so I have a total of four displays down there. It's a real cave! Great place to hang out.
Now if only I could get rid of all the humanmade noise around here! But then, it offers an advantage for me in the sense that I am free to invent and write about a system to cancel it out or otherwise suppress it. There's gotta be a way ...
Back to the economy, I distrust Ryan and Romney both, but unfortutately, I suspect that Obama also wants a VAT, as most Democrats do. (I suspect, but cannot prove.) So the Democrats will have to swear off a VAT if they want to use that issue against Romney/Ryan.
I believe that a huge VAT fight is coming, however we slice it ... but to think that it would come from by beloved GOP simply nauseates me. If Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan want to come on here and join the fun, they're more than welcome as far as I'm concerned. Hey, you guys (R and R), I'll even buy you burgers at Lewie's if you'll come out here and promise me that the VAT is dead in your plans.
Stanley the Scrivener ... Signing Off!
so Stanley are you saying "I would prefer not to."?
i love Bartleby. Crispin Glover played him in an obscure film adaptation a while ago.
I would prefer not to ... vote for either the Democrat or the Republican candidate for President. So I'll likely go for the Libertarian.
Got a little tutorial for ya, sprinkled with a bit of spicy opinion from a Hapless Consumer (HC). Look on your futures, ye working stiffs, and despair!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeXWHVIU9SA&feature=plcp
Stanley the Scrivener, the Absent Minded Professor Gibilisco, Over and Out!
For now.
I love the idea on CEO pay. As a former I-banker, I also think reform is needed to give shareholders more power.
I believe that as it is, public companies are in shambles and Sarbanes-Oxley did little to help other than adding administrative costs and providing a small band of protection for accounting fraud to shareholders that is barely quantifiable. We don't have many public companies around here so it isn't at the top of our issue list, but it should be because most of us are shareholders of public companies in some way, shape or form.
As it is today, the CEOs completely control the Boards which consist primarily of retired individuals that earn $100k + for being on each Board they serve and they are incentivized to keep their mouths shut and be known as a "good" Board member which means being silent except when helping management fight pissed off activist shareholders. Outside board nominations are viewed as venomous attacks on the company, rather than rational concern from economic stakeholders that should have their say.
I don't think any "poison pill" has ever held up to litigation, but they are still commonplace and there are completely different groups of lawyers that deal with investors and corporate management. Given the stream of fees, the best lawyers by far are on the side of corporate management.
Other than standing CEOs, shareholders almost universally agree that "re-striking" options when public companies fail should be subject to shareholder votes, but they are still largely subject to "captive" Board votes. This needs to be addressed in legislation. This is a challenge since CEOs are the primary contributors, even with publicly held corporate funds, to PACs and SuperPacs.
But the fact remains that if you are an activist hedge fund or mutual fund, you are seen as a cancer on Wall Street rather than a champion of the citizens and pension funds that are by far the majority shareholders of publicly held corporations.
Food for thought well beyond the scope of this election.
I will say that if I had to vote for Ryan's budget or Romney's tax plan with a gun to my head, Ryan's budget would be my choice. Supply side economics has been proven incorrect with 30 years of data, time and time again. The numbers don't lie.
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