OH! "End-USER Consumption Tax..."

without the hyphen, I misunderstood initially.
Yep, that might work... but remember who the morons are who would have to vote to enact, implement and enforce such a drastic change...

Never happen.
Sad.

I can wait... :)

Trump is James Taggert.

he will play inside the law and he would be more than happy to adjust the law to do his bidding for him.

After all he has taken government handouts, welfare for business, over and over. Even defaulted on his agreements completely 4 times in his life. While not illegal it shows a continual disregard for any kind of ethical or philosophical compass in his life. The man has proven he will do whatever to get what he wants, and right now he wants to have a show and be the center of attention.

When he is done with the center of attention and if he is president he will want power. That drive will cause him to shift with the whims of people, double deal, cheat lie and steal anywhere where it is legal to do so. Where its not he will be happy to change that.

That is the person he has been so why expect a different man that he exhibits to the public now?

I had only seen the middle of the Romney quote, not the context. I completely see what you're saying now.

I agree with what you're saying on the Trump hat trick. I'm adding that it has the added benefit that if another candidate criticizes him on it, that candidate might come off as being like Romney.

Not sure I agree, depends on what the person says about why he does executive orders.

Cruise says he will use executive order to undo everything that was done by executive order, and the few things that needed to be done would then need to go through proper process. That would be an exceptional use of the executive order and would set up an attitude and environment of executive order = bad.

Getting to a fair tax or flat tax is probably impossible now, because of envy. We'll most likely be able to accomplish it by steps, beginning with Trump's plan, and eventually getting to the tithing concept as people see the explosion of abundance out of lowering taxes. If not, then expect to see more of the same. Yawn.

Okay let’s refresh:
"There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what. And I mean, the president starts off with 48, 49, 48—he starts off with a huge number. These are people who pay no income tax. Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax. So our message of low taxes doesn't connect. And he'll be out there talking about tax cuts for the rich. I mean that's what they sell every four years. And so my job is not to worry about those people—I'll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives. What I have to do is convince the 5 to 10 percent in the center that are independents that are thoughtful, that look at voting one way or the other depending upon in some cases emotion, whether they like the guy or not, what it looks like. I mean, when you ask those people…we do all these polls—I find it amazing—we poll all these people, see where you stand on the polls, but 45 percent of the people will go with a Republican, and 48 or 4…” ~Mitt Romney

I think I’m right, what say you?

On Trump: he is pulling a hat trick. You have to scratch your head (maybe in marvel) that he is being applauded for stating he won’t change a thing just because he found a creative way to say it. It is the art of the deal at work. He is a natural salesman, (I’ll give him that much) even if he doesn’t get the finesse of politics yet. He goes up in the polls and earns a few of the votes of those 47%ers Romney couldn’t capture by basically promising nothing will change for the 47-49%. Not technically true if Trump goes after the subsidies tax-credits but...there you go.

One under-emphasized point is that, although something close to 47% of 'wage earners in the US' don't pay taxes, those are INCOME taxes that subsidies and such shield them from.

When they're on point, the opponents mention that lots of OTHER taxes, like sales taxes or use taxes are rather inescapable by anyone and everyone!

Perhaps, we should stop talking about Federal Taxes, whether Income, Fair or Flat, and take a harder look at Universal Use Taxes, where some kind of surcharge reminds Everyone that they're not getting Anything For Free and that they've Really Got Skin In The Game...

Just askin'....

So I need to remind you all of my 33rd Law?

http://www.plusaf.com/falklaws.htm#33rd

Again? :)

http://www.plusaf.com/_troll-pix/trol...

Personal income taxes didn't exist until 1916 when (I believe it was) Woodrow Wilson persuaded Congress to sign the 16th Amendment. At the time, it was only supposed to target the richest 3 percent of the country. We see how well that worked.

"The concept of trade tariffs implies to me that whatever they're going to 'pay for' would be funded by taxes (tariffs, charges, costs) levied on goods that cross (national?) borders. Yes?"

Yes. That means taxes (properly referred to as import tariffs) on imported goods - everything from automobiles to those crappy toys you get from the dollar store with "Made in China" on them.

"Well, if that pays for nothing but basic 'government expenses' that might work, but what 'should' the source of 'pay for what you're getting' be for national defense, various infrastructure creation and maintenance, etc.?"

Again, prior to 1916, it was enough. Since the creation and subsequent tax base expansion, government has found more than enough ways to spend money because they don't have to focus on prioritization and efficiency. I'm all for "skin in the game" as a first step, but the larger problem is the total lack of government restraint on spending.

I would also point out that this applies to the Federal Government only, and it has few enumerated responsibilities, of which I can think of only a few: national defense, international relations (embassies, etc.), and the postal service. One can also argue for the FBI and CIA/NSA I suppose. Everything else was added by Congress and can just as easily be revoked by Congress.

Forest Service? Turn the land over to the States in which the land is found to manage. Bye bye Secretary of the Interior.
IRS? It would only be responsible for collecting tariffs - it wouldn't be this monstrosity that threatens every taxpayer in the nation.
Education? It shouldn't be a federal program at all!
Housing? Ditto like Education. Economists have shown repeatedly that all these programs do is artificially raise the costs of housing!
...
I could go on and on.

All I hear from Trump are his, "it's gonna be the greatest," plans to either giveth or taketh away.

I want a government without such powers, regardless who sits at the top.

He could start by firing anyone Obama hired for sure if they didn't quit on their own

" He was in essence saying that 49% don’t count. It was dismissive. "
My reading of Romney's comments was that a promise to cut taxes wouldn't matter to half the country because they don't pay taxes. So this particular issue would not affect them personally.

My point is Trump can come along and say, "I have an amazing plan where half the people won't pay taxes. Opponents will be afraid to say that that's already the case now because people might think they mean the people who don't pay taxes don't matter.

There is a difference--
Mitt Romney was talking about who would vote for him. He was in essence saying that 49% don’t count. It was dismissive.

Trump is saying half of all americans won’t pay any taxes under his plan, but he also said in one interview that the subsidies would be going away. like tax credits for those who pay no taxes. I haven’t heard him repeat that bit, but he did say it. He hasn’t as far as I know pointed to a certain group and stated that he doesn’t care what they think because they weren’t going to vote for him anyway, like Mitt Romney did. In fact, the only thing I have heard Trump say is how well he is doing in the polls and how much we all love him. Mexicans love him. Women love him. We all just love him. :) (It’s a Trump-thing.)

"So! He says that 50% of taxpayers will no longer pay any federal income taxes. Aren't we at 49% right now?"
For some reason that fact drives people nuts. When Mitt Romney stated it, his critics said, "wait, some of those people are military, firefighters, etc". Yes. That doesn't change the facts. He's not saying they're bad. He's saying they don't pay income tax. But people perceive stating this fact as a condemnation of people.

Trump saying he has a plan that will result in half the country not paying taxes is brilliant. If his opponents state the fact, "So what, that's already true today," he can have people jump on them as they did on Mitt Romney.

Glad you noticed... :)))

But wait... what about ALL the other Candidates To Be Candidates?!

They're Different from that?
I must have missed something...
:)