VAT

Hold on to your hats and wallets, Sports Fans! Talk emanating from DC is of a VAT, a value-added tax. Generally, that's a national sales tax. It's not a bad concept and, I think, much better than an income tax. A sales tax targets purchases while an income tax, wrong, targets effort, success, labor. With a sales tax one can pay fewer taxes by spending less. An income tax penalizes success, hard work, etc. The more one earns, the more tax one pays. Not cool....

The national sales tax has been talked about for quite a while. Some suggest that a 9% VAT would allow gov't to take in more money than the income tax, obviously allowing for the elimination of the income tax. Yeah, right. Who, Dem or Rep, is going to get rid of any tax?

The fear is that the self-congratulatory elites, the anointed, are going to continue to follow their paragon, their ideal--Europe--on this. Now as misguided as this seems (hey, how many times did we hear these lamebrains laud the "European health care systems," despite its many flaws and inferiority to ours?), that is their goal. The anointed want us to be like Europe. Why, I have no idea. Haven't they noticed Europe's lack of production/productivity, initiative, and achievement in the last 50 years? Europe reflects the French malaise of the 1930s--and we all know what happened to the France of the 1930s! Fools, all of them, just fools!!!!!!

Looking at our "paragon," Europe, we see VAT rates at almost 20%!!!!! Imagine a sales tax of 20% (OK, you NY folks don't have to stretch your imaginations all that much).

When are we going to stop these fools? When are we going to say, "Enough!" and really mean it? Or are we going to be content to continue to focus on the important things, like the NFL, American Idol, etc? Yep, that's a good idea...let's just do that and let our kids and grandkids take care of the mess we are leaving, that is, if it can be fixed.

If you ever get a chance, read about Marcus Aurelius, the last of the The Good Emperors of Rome.