Democrats Slam GOP on National Sales Tax

[applegrove]

Democrats Slam GOP on National Sales Tax

January 25, 2023 at 4:20 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 23 Comments

https://politicalwire.com/2023/01/25/democrats-slam-gop-on-national-sales-tax/

"SNIP.......

“Democrats are seizing on a Republican proposal to impose a national sales tax and abolish the Internal Revenue Service as a cudgel against the GOP, even though the bill has few fans even among Republican lawmakers,” the Washington Post reports.

........SNIP"

[TheRealNorth]

1. Should be running ads against Republicans...

Maybe not TV ads, but in social media.

[wryter2000]

3. Hammer this home

If you buy a pair of shoes for $100, the tax will be $30. If your plumber charges $500 to clear your sewer line, the tax will be $150 (my impression was there would be a tax on services as well as goods.) If you take a flight for $300, the feds will add $90. Who in hell can afford that?

If the aholes had made it 1 or 5 percent, they might get away with it, but 30 percent? They're nuts.

[applegrove]

4. Maybe republicans want to create more anti tax americans by overtaxing people who can't afford that.

[DFW]

6. They can't compensate for lost revenue from income tax with 1% or even 5% VAT

Last edited Wed Jan 25, 2023, 08:33 PM - Edit history (1)

Plus: each state already has the right to levy a state sales tax. So what do the Republicans plan to do? Eliminate the right of states to levy a state sales tax? Leave it intact and make life harder for people in states that still have one (like Texas, for example)? Then, when they have pooled all the money in the Treasury, do they dole it back out in the same proportion in which it came in? Or will there still be giver states and taker states? And then when their 30% turns out not to be enough (and it is NEVER enough), do they re-institute the income tax on top of everything else? (yes, they will)

The very thought of the administrative nightmare necessary to set this up and enforce it should give even hardened, uncaring bureaucrats sleepless nights.

But like all "solutions" proposed by bureaucrats--it's the theory that counts, not the reality left after the bureaucrats have move on to think up more new rules for which they will never assume responsibility for implementing.

[wryter2000]

16. I wasn't advancing it as something that would work.

Just something they could get away with. Your analysis is spot on.

[DFW]

18. Yeah, I got that. Sorry if I didn''t make it clear.

I think they know as well as we do that they could never implement such a hair-brained scheme. They just want to score a few points with the Foxsuckers by putting forth the notion of eliminating the IRS and the income tax. It's good for a headline or two, nothing else.

[wryter2000]

19. Understood

It's good for more than a few headlines. If Dems can't use this effectively in some ads, I'll agree we suck terminally at messaging.

[DFW]

20. Our dilemma

We probably won’t make a big deal out of it precisely BECAUSE it’s so ridiculous. But we underestimate the willingness to accept unfounded crazy notions as fact just because someone has the platform to push it into the headlines (just ask Al Franken about the perils of ignoring what you personally know to be absurd).

[Deuxcents]

5. Why not just revisit those hefty tax cuts? O..wait..they have priorities

[thatdemguy]

8. I do smile at the thought of a billionaire

Paying a 30% tax on his 100 million buck boat thou. To me thats better than just paying 20% on capital gains they never take.

[LiberalArkie]

9. I think the boat would belong to some charitable foundation - so no taxes.

[jmowreader]

12. The market for new $100 million boats will disappear

The FairTax people do not want to tax the purchase of used items, just new ones.

You do realize this tax would completely fuck the business sector. Supposedly this tax will be on finished products sold to the final consumer, but I can't print newspapers with used plates, Jack Buell Trucking can't run logging trucks on used diesel, Titans of CNC can't make rocket parts with used cutters, and McDonald's can't store hamburger patties in refrigerators running on used electricity.

The other big claim - that this tax will eliminate the IRS - is also bullshit. The IRS will become a sales tax collection agency, and they'll get worse than they are now.

[wryter2000]

17. They have a way to get around the tax that's currently in effect

I know someone who did it. You take delivery in another country and wait a while before you bring it to the US.

[DFW]

21. If you can afford a $100 million yacht

You can afford to have it built in a tax haven harbor (Monte Carlo, e.g.). People with $100 million to spend won‘t be hit for the 30%. It‘s the people with $100 or $1000–the ones that can least afford the VAT, that will be hit the hardest.

Funny, here in Europe, it‘s always the left that is pushing the VAT. It‘s weird that the American right has now taken up the cause, although the Europeans were serious about it (started at 10%). They gradually moved it up like a good drug addict should (I still call it government heroin), so that their populations, like the frog in cold water brought slowly to a boil, never were fully aware of what was being done to them. The American right prefers the slap-in-face method, as usual.

[MissMillie]

10. Here is a (no-paywall) link to the WaPo article

https://archive.is/bAAGo

[republianmushroom]

11. How about reversing trumps tax cut, instead. Sounds good to me.

[jmowreader]

13. Also Bush's tax cuts and Reagan's

[dalton99a]

14. Republicans Will Impose 30% Sales Tax On EVERYTHING You Buy.

Democrats need to be shouting this from every rooftop

[70sEraVet]

15. It was years ago, but I still remember the pain of trying to buy clothes and school supplies ...

for our 4 kids at the beginning of the school year. Adding 30% tax to that? It would have CRUSHED us!