Flat tax conversation

Everyone is going on about how great a flat tax would be... I’m not sure they really thought it through. A flat tax would hurt the poor a lot while making the rich richer. The guys I heard were talking about how great a flat tax would be and they said that all you need to do is have a good budget.
I tried to point out that sometimes it doesn't matter how good your budget is. They were adamant though that if there were a flat tax then the economy would be better and the people’s needs would be easier to meet.

I think there is an element of naivete to that though because that assumes that all the "savings" that businessmen get would translate into more hiring or more pay raises and that is not going to happen in many cases.
Oh yeah it is a better idea than having the government try to sort it out because they will spend 98 cents of every dollar on that kind of program in bureaucracy fees.

In a private Business a LOT of those businessmen are going to just pocket the extra and say ohh look at me how rich I am getting
Just like the airlines did when the taxes on them expired last year.
Now, they did not pay their employees better and they did not hire more people and they did not refund or lower prices of passengers... they just pocketed the difference and patted themselves on the back for being such good businessmen that they were making more profit.


This all means that it is clear we will not be able to clear up the tax issue easily. But everyone wants to go on and on about it.

So like I said first and foremost we need to just SHUT UP about ANY tax issue and STOP the wasteful spending.
Then we need to figure out how to make sure that people are getting a LIVABLE wage (not minimum wage)
THEN we can focus on how to do tax reform
If we could link the minimum pay index to an area’s cost of living that would be a start.
For example if you live in a place where the cost of living is really high so as to make it unaffordable, then the business would have to pay higher wages.
If you live somewhere cheaper, the wages can go down some. This ought to make at least the intelligent businessmen interested in doing what they can to make the area where they operate more affordable.

Get it through to the business/es that the more they charge the more it drives up cost of living, the more the cost of living goes up the more they have to pay etc... Then they will maybe learn that they can control their costs by charging LESS, or that they can make the whole area wealthier through the rates they charge.
I think it is a good idea and while I have mentioned it to myself out loud I think this is the first time I have really trotted it out here*. What do you think


Maybe if I could get this one out there people would go "HEY that sounds like a good idea!"
Of course I don’t stop there, the next step to my idea was then we could link taxes to the same index.

Now personally I am starting to think that property tax is evil… (who wants to keep buying the same book or toy or whatever over and over again? MOST things we buy you pay for it once and then that is it.)

However if property taxes were linked to this plan “landlords” would realize the more they charge for rent the more they will have to pay in taxes because the Cost of living is high.

Ultimately it would be a percentage factor but then they could learn to save money from taxes by giving renters a break
That still allows for growth because they will make profits but at the same time it controls growth to what society can afford. (NO Bubble markets)

Of course the issue will still has people saying “if everyone were paying a flat tax the economy would be better and we wouldn't be in this mess.”
I want to scream here, but noi one listens.
Again, the problem isn't taxes or economy here! the reason we are in this mess is because of bad loan practices! a flat tax would not have prevented that or fixed it."

Let’s all stop going on about taxes, taxes, taxes. Instead let’s all focus on the real problem, spending, spending, spending.
Shut up about the taxes and address the real issue and now I have gone full circle
As a side note here I have a question regarding a flat tax... would churches have to pay it too?

They get tax shelters now and the idea behind a flat tax is to eliminate preferential treatment with taxes, which in turn would mean that to be fair we would need to eliminate that exempt status, same with 401s and all other tax shelters. After all in order for a flat tax to "work" we would have to eliminate all the exceptions.

But as I, and others, have pointed out before;
You could take ALL the money that exists in this country, all the money that has ever existed and all the money that WILL ever exist; and it would not be enough to deal with the debt we have today.
It won’t deal with all the ongoing costs that we are looking at, and until we get spending under control it will never deal with anything.
So since the people who are talking about raising taxes are refusing to consider reducing expenses we will never be able to get out of the hole we are in.