From: Michael S. Lorrey (mike@lorrey.com)
Date: Fri Jul 23 1999 - 23:32:09 MDT
Alex Future Bokov wrote:
>
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>
> On Fri, 23 Jul 1999, Mighty Xerxes wrote:
>
> > Do you have a citation to support your assertion?
>
> In a narrow technical sense, he might be correct. Oddly enough, most of
> the US Fed Gov's influence is derived from Article I, Section 8 of the
> Constitution, which has a clause that reads:
>
> "[Congress has the power] To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations,
> and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes"
>
> The reast of that section deals with infrastructure: raising armies and
> warfighting, militias, the post office, coinage, etc. Curiously, there is
> no mention of taxing the populace.
>
> So, unless you are interacting directly with the Fed as an employee or
> beneficiary of Federal $$$, a counterfeiter, or the member of an invading
> army, the Fed has only two excuses for interacting with you in any way
> whatsoever, including taxation.
>
> 1. Regulating interstate commerce.
Interstate commerce is the shipment of goods from one state to another.
The supreme court has decidedly ruled that wages are not taxable, but
income is. Income is profits, not gross revinues. If your outgo is the
same as your inflow, your profits on your personal business of raising
your family is zero, so your income is zero, so you should owe no taxes
on income.
> 2. Maintaining the armed forces.
>
> Spending on military activities in FY98 was 42.9% of the Federal budget.
On the contrary, the military budget was under $300 billion, but the
total budget was somewhere around $1.8 trillion (not including off
budget entitlement expenditures like social security.) The military is
about 16-18% of the budget.
> Presumably the rest was needed for regulating interstate commerce. :-/
> Looking at this from the abstract, the government's claim on the author's
> cash doesn't look much better than his own (except, of course, he's the
> one who earned it).
>
> Realistically, though, this is also an argument against the very existance
> of most of the government. A government that is older, richer, more
> ruthless, and better armed than the author can ever hope to be (at least
> not until he transcends to jupiter-brainhood). The precedent of thousands
> of court rulings supports the Fed's position. Who do you think will get
> their way in the case of a legal ambiguity like this one?
Actually there have been a number of court rulings in the past 20 years
that have supported the taxpayer, as a prior post of mine explained
several months ago.
>
> Anyway, even if he was right, and that alone was enough to make the Fed
> just disappear like the witch in Oz, would he really be better off because
> of it? Will whoever steps in to fill the power vacuum (be they Christian
> theocrats, corporations, mafia, or military juntas) do any better than our
> current government in terms of safeguarding our basic rights, maintaining
> our quality of life, and creating an environment where science and
> commerce can flourish?
Considering that our government did a fine job back when its only
legally recognised means of raising revinues was tarriffs, corporate
license fees, trademark, copyright, and patent fees, and the inflation
of a fiat money, I don't see as there is any justification of supporting
the present imperial government.
Mike Lorrey
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