Below is clip of Rand Paul being interviewed by CNN's Wolf Blitzer.
Rand at the start talks about cutting government spending and not raising taxes, but Blitzer calls his bluff (at roughly 2:05) and asks him if he is in favor of capping deductions and eliminating loopholes, which is simply another way to increase tax revenue, and Rand answers, "Yes." He goes on to talk gobbledygook about tax reform. But once you are in deep talking tax "reform," it's all about the government coming up with creative ways to raise taxes by calling them something else. And why is Rand willing to close loopholes? Remember, Ludwig von Mises said capitalism breathes through loopholes.
When you talk tax "reform," you are talking the language of the deviants in Washington.
Reform doesn't always mean higher taxes.
ReplyDeleteRand Paul says he doesn't want to raise taxes, and he is favor of capping deductions and eliminating loopholes as long as it is part of tax reform, which to him could mean no higher taxes in general. Reducing taxes there, eliminating loopholes here, etc.
You can't assume reform necessarily means higher taxes, even though that's what it typically means.
'Reforming', i.e., eliminating loopholes, is raising taxes.
DeleteRand says we can get more revenue by closing loopholes but then says he doesn't want more revenue for DC.
ReplyDeleteHaha...what a champion in cognitive dissonance.
Wenzel, I'm not sure where the Rand Paul-bashing obsession comes from, but at least try to balance your coverage of him.
ReplyDeleteHow many other senators are threatening to filibuster the NDAA?
Rand Paul: wrong on taxes, wrong for America.
ReplyDeleteThe way he dodged Luke Rudkowski's attempt to interview him like the ablest of political scum was telling in terms of what his motivations are and how he thinks!
Rand speaks, Wenzel creeps
ReplyDeleteHe may want to take a restraining order out on you soon here, Bob
Yes, because publicly criticizing the public utterances of a public official is the same thing as stalking.
DeleteHe said he may agree to cap deductions and close loopholes if tax rates were reduced. He also said he's not going to vote to increase revenue. He said he wants less money coming into Washington and less money spent by Washington.
ReplyDeleteBottom line: Rand Paul is expressing his desire to have lower taxes overall, and lower federal spending overall. Does he speak the language of a politician? Yes. But if he didn't speak it, he wouldn't have been elected to the Senate in the first place, and we wouldn't even be having this conversation. He has learned to speak in the jargon expected from a U.S. Senator by the mainstream media and by the masses in general.
Let's keep watching how he votes, and ultimately make our judgments from his record.
I don't know about Rand Paul, but Ron Paul would say no, don't raise taxes, because that's nothing but theft. The elder Paul would tell Wolf to eliminate the income tax and the thieving IRS. The elder Paul is not afraid to say exactly what the tax-thefts are and that they need to go, and that people have a right to keep everything they earn and a right to do whatever the hell they want with THEIR wealth!
ReplyDeleteRon Paul didn't believe in big bang shuttering the social programs, ending the IRS and the FED overnight. He would tell you it would have to be gradual and that is the same position as his son.
DeleteGetting the budget deficit under control is priority number 1, part-privitizing the social programs is number 2, allowing competing currencies number 3, bringing home troops and shutting bases down number 4, that would keep any president busy for 4 years. Then we can look at other things ...
What a dishonest post. Rand Paul says in this interview that he would trade lower rates for fewer deductions. This is the same position held by pretty much every libertarian. He says more than once that he wants to lower rates -- not raise them. And he even says that Washington should receive less revenue -- not more.
ReplyDelete"This is the same position held by pretty much every libertarian."
DeleteOh?
You asked all of us?
I've never read a libertarian argue that a complicated tax code filled with market-distorting deductions/exemptions/benefits with higher rates is preferable over lower rates and fewer market-distorting incentives. If you can point me to an example to the contrary, I'll happily retract that comment.
DeleteTaxes are the distortion, not the deductions/exemptions (Benefits are distortions, though; That's corporatism. Keeping your own money is not corporatism.)
DeleteTom:
Deletehttp://bastiat.mises.org/2012/11/what-ludwig-von-mises-taught-gottfried-haberler-who-taught-paul-samuelson-about-tax-loopholes/
http://bastiat.mises.org/2012/11/hazlitt-on-loopholes/
There you have Mises, Salerno, Hazlitt, and Sanchez saying that loopholes are a good thing. Rothbard also said the same thing:
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2011/07/rothbard-and-mises-on-tax-credits.html
" Many writers denounce tax exemptions and levy their fire at the tax-exempt, particularly those instrumental in obtaining the exemptions for themselves. These writers include those advocates of the free market who treat a tax exemption as a special privilege and attack it as equivalent to a subsidy and therefore inconsistent with the free market. Yet an exemption from taxation or any other burden is notequivalent to a subsidy. There is a key difference. In the latter case a man is receiving a special grant of privilege wrested from his fellow men; in the former he is escaping a burden imposed on other men. Whereas the one is done at the expense of his fellow men, the other is not. For in the former case, the grantee is participating in the acquisition of loot; in the latter, he escapes payment of tribute to the looters. To blame him for escaping is equivalent to blaming the slave for fleeing his master....
It is clear that if a certain burden is unjust, blame should be levied, not on the man who escapes the burden, but on the man or men who impose it in the first place. If a tax is in fact unjust, and some are exempt from it, the hue and cry should not be to extend the tax to everyone, but on the contrary to extend the exemption to everyone."
Rand's attempts to compromise are nearly worthless at this stage. With a 222 trillion dollar bill for SS and Medicare, only Ron Paul's plan (or even more extreme cuts) is moral, and effective.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to see all federal taxes/spending for everyone and everything abolished. Return them to the states, and fight for abolishment there. Let the states compete with each other for money and capital. I think we'd see far more people leave states like NJ and California. Then they could visit these places, with higher incomes and savings. I hope I get the opportunity to laugh at mercantilist/socialist economies without having to live under one.
These attacks on Rand are bordering on the absurd. There are much more important things to discuss than what Rand Paul is doing every two seconds.
ReplyDeleteDid we not fight a war against Great Britain to get away from taxation?
ReplyDeleteSome perspective:
ReplyDeleteRonald Reagan: An Autopsy
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard60.html
"Creative semantics is the way in which Ronnie was able to keep his pledge never to raise taxes while raising them all the time. Reagan’s handlers, as we have seen, annoyed by the stubborn old coot’s sticking to "no new taxes," finessed the old boy by simply calling the phenomenon by a different name. If the Gipper was addled enough to fall for this trick, so did the American masses – and a large chuck of libertarians and self-proclaimed free-market economists as well! "Let’s close another loophole, Mr. President." "We-e-ell, OK, then, so long as we’re not raising taxes." (Definition of loophole: Any and all money the other guy has earned and that hasn’t been taxed away yet. Your money, of course, has been fairly earned, and shouldn’t be taxed further.)"
I think y'all are missing the subtle point that Rand was making here.
ReplyDeleteFirst Rand says that there's a theory that reducing tax rates--say from 35% to 33% might raise total revenue to the govt (apparently this happens by way of the Laffer Curve theory which says that there's a limit to how much Chuck Conners should whip his slaves in order to maximize his slaves' productivy--but I digress).
Then Rand says he's willing to compromise on tax rates.
Then Rand says he doesn't want to increase revenue going to Washington he wants it to stay in Kentucky.
So he's trying to say that he's willing to reduce government theft rates a few percent in spite of the fact that it might increase revenue to Washington. This would be a compromise if his original proposal was to reduce rates more than a few percent which would both reduce revenue to Washington and increase revenue left in Kentucky.
So as much as I despise Rand's betrayals, here he's making the libertarian point that increased revenue to the government is bad even if a reduction in government theft rates is the cause of the increased revenue.
Yeah Rand is not his dad. Ron would have been adamant about cutting spending and taxes. Rand is the great compromiser. He is not a radical Libertarian but a half hearted Libertarian, a Conservative. Thus he is not Libertarian at all. Need I remind everyone that he knows not a lick about Austrian Economics. He is a sad statist.
ReplyDeleteThe one good thing about this video is that Rand clearly states he wants less spending going to Washington. Let's hope he keeps that position and changes his opinion on loopholes as well. Unfortunately, that I seriously doubt, because in order to look 'reasonable' in modern America, one apparently has to be against loopholes and exemptions.
ReplyDeleteI did not even waste my time to listen.
ReplyDeleteWhatever he says, I remember he shafted his own father by nominating romney BEFORE the convention.
A person of convenience.
Like Anonymous November 29, 2012 1:56 PM wrote, the proof is in the voting.