The death tax stands to ruin any small businesses and family farms that are rich in assets and land. Hard-working Americans who saved and accumulated these assets will be punished for their hard work and investment. This is backwards. Help do something about it HERE: http://www.americansolutions.com/jobsfirst/2010/07/kill-the-death-tax.php
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via Kill The Death Tax | Jobs Here. Jobs Now. Jobs First! | American Solutions.
It simply won’t work. The government cannot MAKE the market do ANYTHING! As soon as they start to control parts of it, i.e. minimum wage laws, price controls, subsidies, etc., we see problems in the marketplace. Government is there to protect the constitution – THE REST IS UP TO OUR ECONOMY, which means people like YOU and ME – it is up to US to solve our energy crisis, and I have full-faith that 300 million Americans are just as capable of making changes as the 400-some representatives at Capitol Hill.
In a free-market, consumers have access to information that allow them to make decisions. If there was not so much government regulation to start with (i.e. subsidies to oil starting many years ago), then the market would have done different things. Mandating people and companies to change through legislation will not work, it will just further hamper our already beaten economy.
– Joni Cave
Judge Andrew Napolitano apparently leads the way to LIBERTY in the new series “Freedom Watch”. We are very excited to have someone standing up for the constitution – the founding principles of this great country. We anxiously await reviews from our staff, and welcome the public to send us what YOU think of the program!
You can check out FREEDOM WATCH here!
The Good American Post – Free Markets, New Media.
Good American Post Staff Reports
The executive director of Save America’s Future, Kenny Thomas, isn’t just talking about educating people – he is actually doing something about it.
Following Historic US Highway 50 for 3,043 miles – Thomas will stop along the stretch of 12 states to talk to and survey residents about their awareness and feelings concerning their views on government spending and the role of government. This will be done with the help of his parents – Wally and Marilyn Thomas who will be following him with their motor home. Upon his arrival in Washington DC, he will deliver this information to Congressional leaders, while his wife and daughters who will meet him in D.C., will deliver to President Obama letters from elementary school students who are concerned with the nation’s national debt.
We cheer Kenny’s efforts as he makes his travels, and hope that you will too. Visit Save America’s Future HERE.
Of course we need a public sector – it is a part of our economy and the “way of life” in the United States.
However, we must be wary about the stringent differences between the public and private sector. Free-market capitalism sometimes gets bashed for greed and wealth, so let’s remember that the private sector DOES NOT have all of the benefits and perks that the public sector may offer. And remember that the more government we have patrolling our daily lives, the more we have to pay for that with our tax money.
It is arguably not the most efficient use of taxpayer money. RedState did a nice job of side-by-side comparisons of compensation amongst the two types of jobs. Check it out and let us know what YOU think!
“Where are the Greenies?” said a friend who owns property and has been vocal about the intrusion of the heavy hand of government in Colorado land law.
The reinstatement of the “Death Tax” in Colorado will have negative implications for land owners who want to leave their land to their children. If HR 3524 (Colorado House) does not get passed, the Death Tax will come back in 2011 with even sharper provisions.
Positions of various government representatives seem to favor land-owners, that is, until you look at their voting records. Politics is in full force at all levels of government – this includes state and local representatives as well.
Aside from the bureaucracy that so many of us are sick and tired of, another more positive and productive statement must be made. That is, this particular issue, could really unite some facets of ideologies.
For example, land owners want to protect their land (via not being taxed at their death). By farmers and ranchers wanting to protect their land and NOT sell out to developers, this is in fact preserving the land/environment/eco-system which can be decimated by urban sprawl and unsustainable development.
Farmers and ranchers want to protect land and wildlife because it is important to them and their children. Environmentalists, and “greenies” if you will, want to protect land and wildlife because it is important to them and their children.
In addition to this, hunters and fishers want to protect land and wildlife because it is important to their sport. People that are so often shoved into the category of “tree huggers” want the same thing.
So where are we? Where are the Americans here? We want the same thing – let’s take a harder look at the bureaucracy and red tape that is in place to “help” the heavy hand of government and see how we may be able to eliminate some of the negative consequences that hurt ALL OF US.
Whether you are conservative or liberal on land issues – this is one area where we should be fighting together. The death tax, and any taxes that make it impossible to preserve land, wildlife, and eco-systems should be eliminated – we will all benefit and protect the very environments that we call home.
– Tisha Casida
There are two types of taxes:
1.) Taxes that are arguably necessary because of how our country operates and the fact that the United States DOES take care of others and DOES provide for national defense.
2.) Taxes that are detrimental to the free-market, to anyone who works, to anyone that owns a business, and to our future of the entrepreneurial spirit that has in the past made our country so productive, prosperous, and a destination for those who want to live the “American Dream”.
Gas prices have risen and will continue to rise, the economics behind such are beyond the grasp of myself, and not worthy of this particular blog post. However, there are upcoming taxes re-named as “FEES” (specifically in the Cap and Trade legislation) that will increase energy prices even more. The effects of these types of taxes are destructive towards our free-markets, just as much as artificial caps or ceilings on prices are.
American Solutions has a more detailed explanation of the upcoming taxes. I can tell you that we should be very wary of the Waxman-Markey cap and trade bill that will hide taxes by calling them fees as well as put in place a mechanism to regulate carbon emissions. I am a big proponent of lowering pollution, but am 100% confidant in free-market solutions to do this. I do NOT believe in creating additional red tape, more layers of bureaucracy, or increasing taxes OR FEES on the American people. It is counter-productive and harms the foundations and principals upon which this country was built.
By Tisha Casida
Once again, in my home state of Colorado, I see why limited taxation and adherence to free markets makes the most sense for WE THE PEOPLE.
Because of a state law that requires online retailer, Amazon, to collect online sales taxes (up to $4.6 million/year) – the retailer is dropping associations with Colorado-based affiliate marketers (those that help sell Amazon’s products). This extra money in taxes, required now by the State of Colorado, is supposed to make up for part of its $1.3 billion budget shortfall.
What happens then to Colorado-based affiliate marketers (including The Good American Post) that have been dropped by Amazon? Extra commissions that we earn (as small-business-owners) are now GONE!
The internet, the freedom it encompasses and and limited red tape that it embraces, are the very reason that small-business owners and individuals can thrive financially. The fact that many transactions are not taxed, allow WE THE PEOPLE, to make more money. Which is a GOOD THING – it puts more money in our pocketbooks, which allows us to spend more money in our local economies. Not giving more and more of our hard-earned money to governments to throw into the trough of their irresponsible spending.
By Tisha Casida
By: Richard A. Correa Sr. SGT RIARNG, Retired
The current debate on Obamacare has led to the public, in the form of the TEA Parties, 9/12 ers and other interested citizens, to raise questions about how our legislative process works, and how it is supposed to work. We have seen the House of Representatives ‘create’ (notice I didn’t say ‘write’, which will be the topic of another offering) three bills which we assume morphed into the one passed by the house and the US Senate ‘create’ two bills that ‘merged’ into what the senate passed. The two bills are now undergoing the ‘reconciliation’ process, another process that is coming under intense scrutiny.
There are many problems with each of these bills, including the increase in existing taxes and the addition of new taxes that are contained in them. As many of these new taxes and tax increases are in the senate bill and not the house bill, the question ‘is this constitutional’ is being asked by many people.
Article I, Section 7 of the US Constitution states:
“All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.”
Some may conclude that this provision of the US Constitution has indeed been violated by the process followed by the senate. Others will point out that the senate has been doing this for as long as the constitution has been in existence.
The senate even has a name for the product of this process; it is called a ‘Vapor’ or ‘Ghost’ bill.
The supporting argument for following this process is that this allows the senate to create its’ own version of legislation on an important issue and it speeds up the legislative process so that needed laws can be passed ‘faster’. They further point out that he US Supreme Court has made a decision (Twin City Bank v. Nebeker, 167 U.S. 196, 202 (1897)) that says doing this is constitutional.
But does this meet the intention of the founders on how raising taxes should be done?
James Madison said in Federalist Number 58:
“This power over the purse may, in fact, be regarded as the most complete and effectual weapon with which any Constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people.”1
It is obvious from this statement that James Madison, the father of the constitution, felt very strongly that keeping the power to raise taxes in the US House of Representatives was essential for the people to be able to control the taxation placed upon them and to control the spending the federal government does in their name. It can also be construed from this that this clause of the US Constitution clearly places responsibility for increases in taxation and spending on the heads of the members of the House of Representatives, the elected body with the shortest term in office, so the people can remove from office those that abuse this power as quickly as the law allows, and replace them with people that will be more responsible with the peoples money.
From the language of Article I, Section 7 of the US Constitution and the above one can draw the conclusion that the founders intent was that any bill that raises taxes should start in the House of Representatives and the US Senate must wait for the bill to be forwarded from the house to the senate before they can take any action on it, and those actions are limited to amending the bill from the house and they could not write their own bill on the issue. As there appears to be no further discussion of the topic in the Federalist papers, or the other writings of the founders’, one can say the topic was understood by all, and there was no disagreement on the subject.
As recently as 1990 it seems the US Supreme Court is also in agreement with the strict interpretation of this clause in the US Constitution. In the US Supreme Court decision in United States v. Munoz-Flores the court stated:
“In the case of Bills for raising Revenue, § 7 [of the U.S. Constitution] requires that they originate in the House before they can be properly passed by the two Houses and presented to the President. . . . The principle that the courts will strike down a law when Congress has passed it in violation of such a command has been well settled for almost two centuries.”2
However, if you look back a little over 100 years before the United States v. Munoz-Flores the US Supreme Court appears to be schizophrenic on the subject. In the US Supreme Court decision in Twin City Bank v. Nebeker:
“Revenue Bills are those that levy taxes in the strict sense of the word, and are not bills for other purposes which may incidentally create revenue.”3
And this interpretation of the process is in fact the problem. From this interpretation the senate can come up with its’ own bills that raise taxes on the people with out restriction by making those tax increases ‘incidental’ to the purpose of the legislation. The fact that the senate has the longest term for elected officials under our federalist system exacerbates the problem. This is clearly a deliberate circumvention of the intended process when it comes to raising revenue and taxes and, though it does not violate the ‘letter’ of the law, it clearly violates the ‘spirit’ of the law.
Many will say the senate has always worked this way or it’s OK, or why would we want to change this now? We should force them to follow the process correctly because every successful attempt to circumvent the intended process in the constitution is how people usurp power from where it belongs and transfers that power to where it was never intended to be. It sets precedents that make it alright to not follow the supreme law of the land and validates the attitude that congress can do whatever it wants and it does not have to abide by the constitutionally set boundaries on the power they are allowed to exercise. In essence, allowing this to continue institutionalizes disobeying the law.
Some will say that to enforce this will inhibit the senates’ ability to; legislate that is completely false. The senate would still be able to add amendments to any legislation that originated in the house, adding or removing taxes as they see fit. But, enforcing this would make the process more ‘transparent’ and it would make it harder to hide the added taxes, which is always to the publics’ advantage.
So how would changing this benefit you? Whenever any legislation is being considered that raises revenue for the federal government, increases the rate of an existing tax or adding a new tax it will have to originate in the US House of Representatives and no ‘parallel’ bill on the same issue could be generated in the US Senate. As we TEA Partiers/9/12 ers are political animals, and are now in the habit of watching the shenanigans of the congress, we could all focus on what is happening in the house without having to be concerned with watching the senates’ activities at the same time. Support for or against the new revenue measures will be directed at our representatives, without having to direct any effort toward the senate, yet. This will increase the effectiveness of the pressure we place on the members of the house because they won’t be able to misdirect our attention to the senate.
Once the bill reaches the senate it will be easier to see who is trying to pick out pockets as the senate will be limited to amending the bill from the house, not creating their own bill. As amendments to a bill by their nature are smaller it will be harder to ‘hide’ new taxes and tax increases, as well as who made the amendment and who voted for these new taxes making senators more vulnerable for their actions.
So what do we want? We want the Congress of these United States to adhere to the spirit, as well as the letter, of Article I, section 7 of the US Constitution.
1 The Federalist No. 58, p. 359 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961)
2 Munoz-Flores, 495 U.S. at 398 (1990)
3 Twin City Bank v. Nebeker, 167 U.S. 196, 202 (1897)
By: Richard A. Correa Sr. SGT RIARNG, Retired
One of the top priorities of the TEA Parties and 9/12ers is the federal government must return to sound fiscal policies. The federal government has abandoned any semblance of common sense when it comes to management of the peoples’ resources. Why is it that the people we send to Washington leave common sense at home and become totally irrational when it comes to managing the federal budget? The cause of this illness is the Federal Reserve System.
What the average American is unaware of is that the Federal Reserve System is not a part of the federal government of these United States. It is a banking cartel, setup to be the central bank of these United States, owned by private bankers, and by federal law it has complete control of the money supply of the United States of America. The establishment of the Federal Reserve System has transformed the currency of the United States of America from a medium of exchange, the value of which is set by congress, to a commodity the value of which can be manipulated by those that control the Federal Reserve System, meaning the bankers that own it.
Why is this important, the following statements made by Mayer Amschel Rothschild, of the European banking family, explain it clearly:
“Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes her laws.”
“Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws.”
In essence, if you control the issuance and value of a nations’ currency you control the nation.
You may say ‘wait a minute, doesn’t the president of the United States of America appoint the chairman of the board of the Federal Reserve System?’ and you would be correct. The president of these United States appoints, and the US Senate confirms the appointment of, the Chairman of the board of the Federal Reserve System as well as the seven other governors of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. This is camouflage to make it appear the government controls the Federal Reserve System when in fact the twelve member banks of the system control all banking in the US and by manipulating our currency control the politicians that are elected to office. And if you control the elected officials of a government you control that government.
Under the US Constitution a system like this is illegal. You may ask, ‘if congress passed a law that created this system how can it be illegal?’ A legitimate question, and the answer to that question is found in Article I – Legislative Branch, Section 8 – Powers of Congress, 5th paragraph which states:
“To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures”
If you do a careful reading of the US Constitution you will see that nowhere in the constitution, or any amendment to the constitution, is the authority to legislate the passing of any power or authority of any branch of the federal government to another entity be it governmental or private. As Article VI, 2nd paragraph declares the US Constitution the ‘supreme law of the land’ this makes the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 illegal because it gives a private banking cartel the power granted to congress in Article 1, Section 8, 5th paragraph.
If the above is true, how did this system get established? Why did the political leaders at that time in our history do this?
This time in our history was the ‘height’ of the American Progressive movement. Woodrow Wilson had just taken office and many senators and representatives of both parties were progressives. Many of these people, as do many of todays’ politicians, saw the constitution as a roadblock to what they wanted to accomplish, so they simply ignored it.
The legislation was drawn up at Jekyll Island, South Carolina by the ‘Warburg Group’ in 1910. Among the notables of the ‘Warburg Group’ was Paul M. Warburg, a partner in Kuhn, Loeb & Company and Nelson W. Aldrich, senator from Rhode Island, the republican whip, Chairman of the National Monetary Commission, a business associate of J. P. Morgan and father-in-law of John D. Rockefeller Jr.
As to why they did it, wealth and power of course. In an article published in 1914 in a magazine called The Independent Senator Aldrich was quoted as saying “Before the passage of this Act, the New York bankers could only dominate the reserves of New York. Now we are able to dominate the bank reserves of the entire country.”2 Anthony Sutton, former Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution for War, Revolution and Peace stated “The Federal Reserve System is a legal private monopoly of the money supply operated for the benefit of the few under the guise of protecting and promoting the public interest.”3
Before continuing it should be noted that the Federal Reserve System is not the first attempt at having a central bank for the United States of America, it is the fourth. The last such bank had its’ charter revoked by President Andrew Jackson. From the time of the Jackson administration until 1913 the banking system of the US had its’ ups and downs (booms and recessions/depressions). Even so, the value of the US dollar, in comparison to other nations’ currencies, grew by 13%. Since the establishment of the Federal Reserve System, aggravated by the US going off the gold standard, the value of the US dollar has shrunk to current levels.
The founders, and President Jackson, had this to say about central banks:
Thomas Jefferson said:
“The central bank is an institution of the most deadly hostility existing against the Principles and form of our Constitution. I am an Enemy to all banks discounting bills or notes for anything but Coin. If the American People allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the People of all their Property until their Children will wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered.”
And:
“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.”
John Adams said:
“Banks have done more injury to the religion, morality, tranquility, prosperity, and even wealth of the nation than they can have done or ever will do good.”
Andrew Jackson said:
“If Congress has the right under the Constitution to issue paper money, it was given to be used by themselves, not to be delegated to individuals or corporations.”
And:
“Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter, I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves.”
So, what is so bad about the Federal Reserve System? The Federal Reserve System is the ‘lender of last resort’ to the United States federal government (and apparently other governments) and it ‘creates’ money. Aren’t these good things? As with all things that depends on how what the bank does affects you.
How the system impacts all of us is the way in which it creates money. Though there are many variations on how this is done there are two basic ways of creating money, loans to the government and loans to private individuals.
Loans to the US Federal Government
How this works is fairly straight forward (keep in mind here that the congress, not the president, dictates the federal budget). Congress passes a bill that tells the administration to spend ‘X’ amount of dollars, in this case let’s say 1.5 trillion dollars. After the president signs this bill into law the Treasurer of the US tells the president and congress the treasury only has 1 trillion dollars in it. The problem is that the bill has been signed into law so the federal government has to spend money that the treasury does not have. So the Treasurer of the US goes to the fed and says ‘I need ½ a trillion dollars.’ The fed, of course, is only too happy to lend the government the money, the only problem is that the money does not exist. For the fed this is not an issue, they simply write a check to the government for ½ a trillion dollars and presto change-o the money is suddenly created out of nothing.
Now, the US taxpayer owes 500 billion dollars to the fed and has to payback this loan, and pay interest on the loan, with ‘real’ money, your tax dollars, and the dollars that existed before the fed loaned this ‘money’ to the US government are worth less because the supply of dollars has just been increased by ½ trillion dollars.
Loans to individuals
Under the Federal Reserve Act all banks in the US became a part of the Federal Reserve System and must follow its’ regulations. Under this system banks must maintain a certain level of ‘cash’ reserves in relation to the number of dollars that the bank loans. This is called fractional reserve banking. The idea is that if there is a ‘run’ on a bank it will have enough ‘cash’ on hand to pay it’s depositors what they have saved in the bank so the bank doesn’t ‘go under’ or ‘fail’. The ratio varies based on fed regulations but it can be easily explained.
For the purpose of this discussion let’s say the ration is 1:9. What that means is that for every dollar deposited in the bank the bank can lend nine dollars. So, on payday you deposit your paycheck in your account at Freds’ bank. Let’s say your paycheck is 100 dollars (hopefully you make more than that but this is an easy number to work with). Now you have 100 ‘real’ dollars in your account at Freds’ bank. Now your neighbor, Bob, needs a loan to fix a hole in the roof of his house. Bob goes to Freds’ bank to get the loan. Under the Federal Reserve System regulations Freds’ bank has to keep the 100 dollars you deposited in your account so they meet the requirement for cash on hand. That’s OK because Freds’ bank can loan 900 dollars that do not exist to Bob because they have your 100 dollars that do exist.
The end result of this is that Bob has to pay Freds’ bank 900 dollars of ‘real’ money, and interest until this loan is paid off (also ‘real’ money) because the bank gave him 900 dollars that did not exist until the bank wrote Bob a check for the loan he needed. Again, all the dollars that existed before Bob got his loan are now worth less because Freds’ bank increased the number of dollars in existence by creating 900 dollars out of nothing
Now take the above scenario and expand it to cover all the loan transactions that take place on each business day in the USA. It’s easy to see why the banks like this system but why do the politicians like it?
When you take the government and individual scenarios together you have the mechanism that drives inflation. Inflation is a hidden tax on all activities in the nation that involve money. The reason politicians love this mechanism is that they don’t have to ‘openly’ increase taxes on the voting public, making it easier to get reelected, and yet they can still spend the publics money like drunken sailors.
Now imagine how things would be if the Federal Reserve Act had never been passed. For one thing your paycheck would be smaller. Well that’s no good, until you realize how much more the dollars you bring home could buy. In 1966 a brand new Ford Mustang was anywhere from $2,416 to $4,428 depending on options. Today a Ford Mustang runs $27,200 for the basic model. That’s over 10 times the 1966 price. This reasoning can be applied to anything else you might buy from candy (I remember buying a single stick of gum for a penny at the local market when I was a kid) to houses.
Also, how much better off would you be if the dollar had continued to gain value instead of losing value after the Federal Reserve Act was passed. That can only be guessed at.
So what do we want? We want an end to the Federal Reserve System and congress to take up it’s responsibilities under Article I, Section 8, paragraph 5 of the US Constitution.
1 The Creature from Jekyll Island, pg. 5, by G. Edward Griffin
2 The Creature from Jekyll Island, pg. 20, by G. Edward Griffin
3 Sutton, Wall Street and F.D.R., pg. 94