> On Tue, Jan 27, 2004 at 05:21:32AM -0500, Carl Fink wrote: > > Perhaps you've heard of the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution, > > explicitly authorizing an income tax?
The first guy I heard talking about this was on AM-radio, back before Tim McVeigh took all the fun out of black helicopters and jack-booted-thugs, and back before the IRS circulated the memo to "be nice." I always felt kind of squirrelly cause god knows I don't want to turn into one of *those* guys. But fortunately an entirely different set of whackos is getting into it now. http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2004/01/macguineas.htm And plenty of people talk about a national sales tax. It's not unpatriotic to want to dislike that amendment. The nut-jobs point is that if you just tax stuff, like beer, or tobacco, or just corn, and you dedicate *that* particular tax to *that* particular purpose, well then say the tax on beer pays for the war in Iraq, and you *really* don't agree with that, then you can choose not to support it by not buying beer, and switching to wine instead. But you can't do that if the tax is just on "all stuff" or "your income" -- you can't not use "all stuff." To that extent only, I agree with it. I personally understand its necessary to be a Good Citizen and most of what the government does doesn't bug me. But I think that it would be A Good Thing. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
