Thread: Do you want cherry or grape cool aide? It is on ice for ya.

Cool aide is on ice! Good to see we are taking ideas from Europeans with a near 0% growth rate and double digit unemployment. Seems like a receipe for good times for all. The plan is to follow Europe. Hey I remember when we were the go it alone nation. Maybe my memory is fuzzy - not!

Morpheus



Overhauling tax system is on top of Bush's agenda
Associated Press

December 12, 2004
WASHINGTON -- Buoyed by a clear-cut election victory, President Bush is pledging to make permanent the sweeping tax cuts of his first term and to simplify the nation's tax laws.

The price tag on making the tax cuts permanent is more than $1 trillion, a daunting number in an age of record budget deficits. (good for I fund :?).

Bush's supporters are betting that the president will end up getting what he wants with the help of bigger Republican majorities in both the House and the Senate.

"The president is very serious about this. He wants to make a major push for overhauling the tax system," Moore said.

He first stated his tax overhaul goal in his August acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. He promised that if re-elected, he would create a bipartisan advisory panel to come up with a "simpler, fairer, pro-growth system."

The idea did not attract much attention during the campaign against Democratic Sen. John Kerry. But last week, Bush put the idea front and center again, telling reporters at his first postelection news conference, "We must reform our complicated and outdated tax code."

In August, Bush suggested that a proposed national sales tax was "an idea that we ought to explore seriously." But the White House quickly backed away from the proposal, which Democrats contended would raise the cost of living for poor families while giving the wealthy a big tax break.

Some House Republicans, angered by how long it takes people to fill out their tax returns each year, are pushing the idea of replacing the current income tax. Alternatives could include a national sales tax, some other form of consumption tax, or possibly a simplified "flat tax," which taxes all income at a single rate and gets rid of deductions.

The national sales tax imposed at each level of production of goods and services and is widely used by European governments. (our heros!!!)

Supporters of this tax see advantages, especially if it were coupled with reducing or eliminating corporate income taxes. Those taxes are getting harder to collect in an era when multinational companies use various loopholes to avoid paying U.S. taxes.

"The U.S. tax system is out of step with the rest of the world. We are the only major industrial country that does not have either a national sales tax or a (value-added tax)," said David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor's in New York. (hey I thought we were a leading not follow nation???).