{"id":35102,"date":"2010-04-07T01:01:01","date_gmt":"2011-05-19T01:10:17","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-05-19T01:10:17","modified_gmt":"2011-05-19T01:10:17","slug":"a_vat_tax_will_help_create_a_permanent_dependent_class","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2010\/04\/07\/a_vat_tax_will_help_create_a_permanent_dependent_class\/","title":{"rendered":"A VAT Tax Will Help Create a Permanent Dependent Class"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

All right, the value-added tax, and not only the value-added tax, Volcker at the Historical Society of New York: value-added tax and we\u2019re going to need some kind of carbon tax to get rid of these deficits, pay down the debt. It\u2019s coming. We\u2019re just going to have to do it. It is coming. They are going to do it. They\u2019re not going to reduce spending, folks. This regime is not going to reduce spending. There are 130 countries that use the value-added tax. Hungary\u2019s VAT is 20%. Last time I was in the UK it was 15% there. It\u2019s probably gone up. Nineteen percent in Greece, and it\u2019s really helped them, hasn\u2019t it? All this new tax money just gets spent. It\u2019s not going to reduce any deficit. It\u2019s not going to go into any pool to pay down the debt. It isn\u2019t going to happen. The reason politicians like the value-added tax is, is it\u2019s hidden. You can\u2019t see it. It\u2019s a tax placed at every level of production and sales, every level, manufacturing, wholesale, retail, wherever, a little bit is added at every step of the way but you don\u2019t really see it. You end up paying for it all when you buy the product or the service. It hasn\u2019t helped Greece in any way, shape, manner, or form. <\/p>\n

Now, the value-added tax is how they\u2019re planning to pay for Obamacare, according to the Heritage Foundation\u2019s Morning Bell. And here\u2019s what they say. ‘The left\u2019s solution to this problem has been simmering for some time now. Senate Budget Committee chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) floated the idea to The Washington Post last May. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told Charlie Rose it was ‘on the table\u2019 in October. And yesterday White House adviser Paul Volcker told the New York Historical Society it should be considered. The ‘it\u2019 here is a Value Added Tax (VAT), which is a fancy way of saying national sales tax. A VAT can be (and has been) structured in many different ways. But the real world results are always the same: higher taxes, more government spending,\u2019 \u2019cause they don\u2019t use the money to pay down debt. You get ‘lower [job] growth,\u2019 because you\u2019re taking even more money out of the private sector, ‘fewer jobs,\u2019 because you\u2019re taking more money out of the private sector, and you have ‘more special interest power,\u2019 because they all lobby for their business to be exempt from it. <\/p>\n

Now, as the Heritage Foundation says: ‘Higher Taxes: Don\u2019t believe for a second that a VAT will help offset other taxes. International evidence clearly shows that a VAT is likely to increase the aggregate burden of government. Europeans used to only have a slightly higher tax burden than the United States. But beginning in the late 1960s, European countries began to implement VATs. Since then, the overall tax burden in Europe has climbed rapidly. And once a VAT is in place, the evidence shows that the tax rate rises over time,\u2019 just like every other tax rate rises. ‘Higher Government Spending: Not surprisingly, with more revenues, European governments turn around and spend much more than the United States does.\u2019 I can\u2019t believe that\u2019s true even now, but we\u2019ll go with it. ‘According to a study by the US Chamber of Commerce, government spending grew 45 percent faster in VAT nations than in non-VAT countries.<\/p>\n

‘Slower Growth: According to the academic literature, there is a strong negative relationship between government spending and economic performance. In other words, more government spending means less economic growth and fewer jobs,\u2019 and it only stands to reason you\u2019re taking even more money out of the private sector, because, ‘Economic growth is driven by individuals and entrepreneurs operating in free markets, not by Washington spending and regulations.\u2019 It would also make Washington even more powerful. ‘No VAT could ever be levied evenly on all goods and services.\u2019 It just won\u2019t happen. ‘Due to political considerations, a VAT in addition to current taxes would likely exempt politically sensitive items like food, clothing, health care and housing. <\/p>\n

‘Industries would lobby heavily for exemptions from the VAT for the economic benefits described above. This would give Congress an even larger role in picking winners and losers in the marketplace. Success would depend less on ingenuity and hard work and more on the ability to gain political favor.\u2019 So all of the work that normally would go into creating jobs or doing a job well or creating a new product, whatever, will be spent lobbying Washington for exemption from all of these stupid Draconian shackles that they\u2019re going to be placing on everybody. That\u2019s where the energy is gonna go, and so Washington even more will be choosing winners and losers by virtue of deciding who\u2019s exempt and who\u2019s not from this new tax. ‘Our nation faces a financial crisis. But low revenues are not the problem. Spending is.\u2019 Now, here\u2019s a down and dirty little statistic by Brian Riedl at the Heritage Foundation. <\/p>\n

‘Real federal spending remained steady at $21,000 per household throughout the 1980s and 1990s, before President Bush hiked it to $25,000 per household. Now, President Obama has a proposed a budget that would permanently spend a staggering $32,000 per household annually — and that\u2019s before all the Baby Boomers retire and add another $10,000 per household in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicare costs to the bottom line. So the problem is not declining revenues, but rather a spending spree unlike any in American history. If Washington insists on spending $32,000 per household, it will have to tax $32,000 per household,\u2019 or else we\u2019re going to run the deficit, ‘an unaffordable and unfair tax burden regardless what kind of tax collects it.\u2019<\/p>\n

‘Simply bringing real federal spending back to the $21,000 per household average that prevailed in the 1980s and 1990s would balance the budget by 2012 without raising a single tax on anyone. Even returning spending to the pre-recession level of 20 percent of GDP would eliminate two-thirds of the projected 2019 budget deficit without raising taxes.\u2019 Over the course of this program, we\u2019ve given statistics like this, at one point when the deficit was considered intolerable at $300 billion a year. Simply freezing federal spending for five years would have balanced the budget, freezing it, counting for inflation, allow federal spending to go up every year by the inflation rate, but no more than that and the Democrats just cowed, they crowed, ‘You can\u2019t cut the budget like that!\u2019 We\u2019re not cutting anything; we\u2019re just not growing it. The dirty little secret remains, and this is what Obama\u2019s real objective is, is to totally reverse Reaganism, and if he gets this VAT, hell he\u2019s probably already done it with health care, but the objective here is the creation of a permanent underclass and a total reversal of Reaganism, the Reagan revolution. <\/p>\n

If you get this health care, which he\u2019s got, if you get this value-added tax, you get the carbon tax, then the government is the central focus of everybody\u2019s life. Everybody is going to be doing whatever they can to avoid whatever government is doing to them rather than being creative in their own self-interest. What are they so afraid of, why do they have to wipe out Reaganism? Top marginal tax rate in 1981, Reagan takes office, 70%. Total take to the Treasury then, $500 billion. Reagan leaves office in 1989. Top marginal tax rate, 28%, dropped from 70. Total take to the Treasury, almost a trillion dollars. Cutting tax rates from 70%, that was a top marginal rate at the time, down to 28% doubled revenues. We know how to increase revenue. That\u2019s not their objective with taxation. The regime doesn\u2019t care about raising revenue with taxation. No, no, no. It\u2019s about growing government, creating a permanent underclass so that a majority of Americans never even have the chance to acquire wealth. A permanent underclass will forever be dependent on the regime. That is the regime\u2019s link to eternal power.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Here from the Fox Business Network. This afternoon Gerri Willis spoke to a Cato Institute guy, Dan Mitchell, about the value-added tax, and she said, ‘Well, look the math on the surface looks pretty simple: 1% VAT, $1 trillion in revenue. But what would a VAT in this country put on top of an income tax due to our economy and really our way of life?\u2019<\/p>\n

MITCHELL: Well, ‘VAT\u2019 is just a way of spelling ‘big government\u2019 in Europe, because that\u2019s exactly what we\u2019ve seen happen there. They put in the VATs, they promised to reduce or get rid of other taxes; they didn\u2019t. The same thing would happen in America. The end result, after all these years, is they have much, much bigger governments. They didn\u2019t reduce deficits. Deficits in places like Greece and Ireland and England are higher than what we have, and their national debts are higher than what we have. The only argument for a VAT is if you\u2019re a big government politician and you want a brand-new tax so you have new loopholes to auction off to campaign contributors, and you have more money to spend buying votes with the tax money of the American people.<\/p>\n

RUSH: There you have it. That\u2019s exactly what it does. Plus it takes more money out of everybody\u2019s pocket. It turns everybody loose — the lobbyists and so forth loose — bribing, negotiating, paying off whatever members of Congress and the Senate to exempt their companies, their industries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

All right, the value-added tax, and not only the value-added tax, Volcker at the Historical Society of New York: value-added tax and we\u2019re going to need some kind of carbon tax to get rid of these deficits, pay down the debt. It\u2019s coming. We\u2019re just going to have to do it. It is coming. They […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nA VAT Tax Will Help Create a Permanent Dependent Class - The Rush Limbaugh Show<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2010\/04\/07\/a_vat_tax_will_help_create_a_permanent_dependent_class\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"A VAT Tax Will Help Create a Permanent Dependent Class - The Rush Limbaugh Show\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"All right, the value-added tax, and not only the value-added tax, Volcker at the Historical Society of New York: value-added tax and we\u2019re going to need some kind of carbon tax to get rid of these deficits, pay down the debt. It\u2019s coming. We\u2019re just going to have to do it. It is coming. 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