From “Front & Center”, by Bud Burrell
According to Neil Cavuto of Fox Business News today, our current Congressional Democratic Leadership has started a whispering campaign to test the waters for a possible 20% VAT tax (value-added tax) on all goods and services sold in the US. This comes on the heels of a planned Cap and Trade tax program designed to drive the United States off carbon based power sources over the next 20 years. Here is yet again a devastating tax that crosses all demographic lines, regressive in the extreme, and one which penalizes innovation and production by impairing already weakened consumer and small business segments.
Many do not understand the original general concept of Value Added Taxes. They were supposed to tax the incremental value added to a product as it went through each stage of production and distribution. European models were created that “simplified” the accounting burden, by putting the entire burden on the end consumer, with a one-time tax on the sale price of the product. That was never part of the original design of VAT taxation. Instead, this rumor proposes an entirely new bastardization of VAT concepts.
We have a brief period to stop this initiative, or we will have to wait for the mid-term Congressional Elections in 2010 to throw these clowns out on their pointed heads. I certainly would not want to be running for re-election if I signed this proposed bill. I would expect rotten tomatoes to be thrown at me, in a best case scenario. Harry Reid is in the run of his life, and he knows the current administration’s policies aren’t helping him. [entire post]