During last week’s debate in South Carolina, the GOP candidates went down the line stating their preferred income tax rates. In a natural attempt to one-up the other presidential hopefuls, each answer was a little lower than the one heard immediately before. Yet to assume people like Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum will actually try to reduce the government’s size is a wild fantasy worthy of any good fiction.
We can be sure Ron Paul‘s answer—zero percent—is truthful for the simple reason that he’s been saying it his entire career, not just after Gingrich’s answer. The Tax Policy Center estimated $956 billion was collected through individual income taxes alone in 2011, meaning this nonexistent rate fits perfectly into Paul’s larger “Plan to Restore America,” which will cut $1 trillion in spending during his first year in office.
Critics seem to forget that while $1 trillion seems like a lot of loot to the average American family, the amount is pocket change for a government that steals so much from us each year. Think comparatively about these reductions—Obama requested $3.73 trillion for expenditures in 2012, so Ron Paul’s “D raconian cuts” will leave us at the same spending levels we had in 2005.
Unfortunately, people are still nervous about eliminating five federal departments: Energy, Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Commerce, Interior and Education. I’ll be surprised if most people even realize what the middle three departments even do without taking a quick peek at Wikipedia, so we won’t even discuss how they’re nowhere to be found in the Constitution.
Now let’s talk utility—and please distinguish between federal involvement in these matters and the stated goals. For example, eliminating the Department of X will not eliminate the existence of X in the United States.
Government schooling has not changed education for the better, a fact to which our empty wallets will sadly attest. Inflation-adjusted federal K-12 spending per pupil has increased by a factor of 350 percent since the department’s creation only 30 years ago, but students’ test scores have not risen at all. Then where is all of this money going? The answer: federal bureaucracy, a hallmark of central planning.
There is literally nothing to lose by allowing state and local governments to direct education. Families will have that much more money to spend on their children’s schooling after income taxation is abolished, and local politicians are way more accountable for bad policies than Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.
Our Department of Energy seems confusing at first, because individuals assume our water and air would be ruined without. Here’s the point libertarians need to explain: It is already illegal to put dirt and bacteria into my neighbor’s property. Without the federal government looking into the matter, every judge on Earth will prosecute me for tampering with my neighbor’s water supply or spraying pesticides into his or her air vents.
A peek at Democratic connections to the Keystone Pipeline and Big Oil should tell you enough about why these large corporations are the ones continually receiving oil leases and having their liabilities capped after disastrous mistakes.
And, when it comes to nuclear facilities, transfer programs like the National Nuclear Security Administration, into the Department of Defense; it’ll have plenty of money after Ron Paul brings the troops home from foreign countries.
If you really want to live on a clean planet, the primary goal should be to remove the government from energy. Its unethical alliance with big business does more harm than good to our environment, and it’s been this way since the beginning.
This elimination, as scary as it may seem, will enhance our lives. If you take away the layered bureaucracies and the corporate interests, we’ll have a much freer country coupled with a much fairer economy.
