>>>>
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/04/22/obama-expresses-openness-new-value-added-tax/>>>
>>>In some ways a VAT is actually a step in the right direction,
as long as it replaces one or more existing tax(es) and isn't simply an additional tax:
>>>
>>
>>Yeah, that's gonna happen <bg>
>
>It's easy to be flip with this, but in all seriousness it's a real measure of the quality and courage of your elected representatives if they can replace various taxes with a VAT.
>
>Cowardly governments:
>
>- LOVE hidden taxes
>- LOVE to tax business, because businesses can't vote, and all a business can do is pass on the increased tax to consumers as higher prices, so the business gets blamed for the government's action (perfect from a government POV)
And *really* cowardly governments will do a shell game with the hidden taxes - claiming to ameliorate them while just shifting them around and use that as the justification for a VAT. That's kind of the scenario I'm forecasting.
As PJ O'Rourke says, "Giving money and power to politicians is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." <s>
Charles Hankey
Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.
- Thomas Hardy
Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm-- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
-- T. S. Eliot
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.
- Ben Franklin
Pardon him, Theodotus. He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.
