At the time of this writing, we still have not seen a tax bill sent to the president for signing. Instead, we’re watching a lot of horse-trading go on among politicians, as we—and they—try to determine who is for and who is against the bill.
Meanwhile, we’re catching an enormous amount of rhetoric coming from both sides. Me? Rather than play the pundit, I’d prefer to look at these matters in a much more practical way.
In short, the world is not going to end if we pass the tax bill, and the world is not going to be saved by a tax bill being passed, either. So, now that we are done with the rhetoric, we can adopt a more pragmatic approach and state that as with all things government, there are going to be winners and losers in this tax bill.
First off: It is important to remember that there’s nothing in this world of ours that will satisfy everyone. There will always be people who’ll be hurt no matter what bill gets passed through Congress. This is the nature of humanity, so it is important to know but not to dwell on.
We have come through a period where we raised taxes on everything and brought in more money to the Treasury than ever in history and yet still ended up printing 10 trillion dollars more than we had before we raised taxes. We still have many people on food stamps and welfare, who, worse, may be homeless and living in dire poverty.
Empirically speaking, then, it seems increasingly clear that the federal government is really not the solution we are looking for to save humanity.
My perspective is this: Stop taxing so much. Stop asking for more. Live within your means. Let Americans keep their hard-earned money. Stop with the class warfare. Stop with the continuous lies that people will die if this bill is passed.
Let’s try something different and see what happens. The alternative is already in place, and helping no one, so why stick with it? Less taxation, no matter what group is affected, is a good start. So, after we get this bill adjusted and signed, we need another and then another, until everyone is paying less in taxes. Let’s reshape the federal government so that it works more efficiently and takes accountability and uses what it gets rather than grabbing more and more and solving nothing except for enriching politicians who add nothing to our society.
I have watched since I was just a kid how incredibly big and powerful, as well as clunky and inefficient, our government has become. It has grown to serve no one but those who work within it.
If that statement were incorrect, there’d be no need to debate the tax issue at all, as all problems would already have been solved by taxing people; yet nothing has been solved at all.
Our government is complicated, and expensive, but still exhibits all the problems that were there to begin with. Now, we are at a historic crossroads where we can reshape that government, to be “for the people by the people”; and the less money we give the government, the better chances we have of getting the government we truly want.
