Fixing the deficit

I’d like to offer a solution to our Congresscritters on just how to fix the national deficit and start repaying the national debt. As a side benefit, it would also help shrink the size of the Federal Government back to something we might be able to live with. From my perspective, it’s simple and straightforward, with nowhere in it to hide goodies for special interests. You know, everything a politician hates.

First, we’re going to reform the tax code by scraping the damn thing. You can’t fix it–it’s simply too Byzantine to be suffered to exist. We’re going to go to some sort of flat tax with a single deduction. We work it this way:

Each year, someone in the Federal Government figures out what the “poverty level” is. I want it figured out such that for an individual, it’s $x. For two people, it’s $x + $y. For 3, it’s $x +$y +$z. For 4, $x + $y +$2z. For 5, $x + $y +$3z. Continue the progression. Nice simple, easy to work with.

Your single deduction is for all income up to the poverty level for whatever size your family is. That’s it, that’s all you get. No mortgage deductions, no earned income credits, no nothing.

The tax rate is some percentage, let’s say 15% just for giggles.

You could fit the new tax form on a single sheet of paper, front and back, including the necessary table and instructions. You can file a paper one, but you can also go online and fill the thing out on the IRS website for free. Oh, and we’ll can about 75% of the IRS employees as well, since taxes are now going to be really, really simple.

1. How much did everyone in your household you make this year?
2. How many people in your household?
3. Refer to the table on the back and enter the poverty level income level for the size of you household.
4. Subtract line 3 from line 1, then multiply by 0.15. Send us that amount.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention–no withholding. That makes things even simpler, and encourages folks to pay attention to how big a bite taxes are removing from their paycheck.

Corporations get to play by the same rules, but we’ll substitute salaries paid for the poverty level. No deductions for anything else.

Now that we’ve fixed the income portion, let’s handle the expenditures part.

The Federal Government budget is hereby reduced by 50%. Yes, that’s a lot, and yes, everything, including the military, will get cut. We can save some money by outright elimination of groups like the Dept. of Education and the Dept. of Energy. There are plenty of others; amuse yourself developing your own list.

We can reduce our military costs by bringing most of our troops home and spending more time tending to our own business rather than sticking our noses into Libya, Kosovo and every other turd-whirled county that can’t figure out how to treat their population. If we need a punitive expedition such as Afghanistan, we go in, break everything that needs breaking and kill everyone that needs killed and leave a note at the border on the way out–“Do it again and we’ll be back.”

I suspect I’m missing some fine points (such as a line item for ear plugs so we don’t have to listen to all those gored sacred cows bellowing) but you get the drift–I’m taking a chainsaw to it.