63 Tax Reform

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Tax Reform is one of those cheap political pandering tactics that makes honest debate about the real issue impossible. It is a Trojan horse to obscure the pro-socialization agenda of the Left or the anti-government agenda of the Right, depending on which side you are on. I used to be surprised every time there was a new call for “tax reform,” I could not understand why the conditions that require changes in taxes could not be predicted and accounted for, especially considering Government’s many decades of experience in taxation, and the sheer volume of modern tax law covering every possible contingency. Now it's clear to me that the people advocating these reforms are being duplicitous: The Right claims they can lower tax rates by getting rid of "loopholes," especially the ones that the Middle Class benefits from, like mortgage interest & home property taxes, medical expenses, education credits, retirement accounts, "green" subsidies, and the other goodies that redistribute income from the wealthy to the rest of us.<br /><br /> Only the Middle Class benefits from Itemized Deductions because those phase out at higher income levels. On-the-other-hand, Depletion Allowance & Depreciation are tax evasion vehicles of The Rich. But that's not where the real money is: the real rip-off of Americans is the special treatment of Capital Gains, which only The Rich benefit from, and the Middle Class pay for. Here's how the Capital Gains Tax Cuts scam works: the Nouveau Aristocracy has convinced you that their money has more merit than yours so they don’t have to pay as much. They think that economic activity most efficiently trickles down from the top, and that you should be grateful to them for their rare & astute business acumen. Horse-pucky.<br /><br />We have decided as a society that we want people to own houses. We want them to send their kids to college, and even go themselves. We want them to save money to retire, reduce their carbon footprint, and take care of their parents who have moved in due to old age. We want it, we vote & there's a lot of us.</p>