It is absolutely amazing how the pushers of the alleged fair tax [H.R. 25], including Huckabee, beat their chests and brag that their tax reform plan will fund existing levels of federal spending under its revenue neutral feature. They are correct! The unavoidable fact is, H.R. 25 was carefully designed to bleed the American People so as to keep financing the Washington Establishment and its political plum job empire at current levels!


How dare someone would ever think of a tax reform plan which may actually encourage Congress to start closing down various offices and departments which have no constitutional basis whatsoever, such as the Department of Education, a creature of Congress which Huckabee supports and is there for no other reason than to provide countless political plum jobs to reward the friends of members of Congress.


We all know the federal Department of Education has approximately 5000 federal political plum job employees with excessive salaries, top of the shelf medical plans, and an outrageous pension program, all of which Mary and Joe Sixpack living in Iowa can only dream of having but would be gouged to finance under Huckabee’s fair tax plan. But the sad truth is, public education just happens to be a state constitutionally authorized function, not a federal function, and yet, Mary and Joe of Iowa would be taxed under Huckabee’s fair tax plan, in addition to being taxed by their state government to fund a state constitutionally authorized function. Seems to me Mary and Joe of Iowa need to ask Huckabee why the alleged fair tax needs to be so high. Seems to me what Huckabee is talked about when he so proudly announces the alleged fair tax would fund existing levels of federal spending, he is talking about Mary and Joe Sixpack being kept a tax slave to finance the Washington Establishment and its millions of federal political plum job holders.


Heck, by closing down the Federal Department of Education which has a budget of $ 67 BILLION, a budget which was the entire federal budget in 1955, surely the fair tax could be lowered and Mary and Joe Sixpack would have more money in their pocket to perhaps pay for their families health care needs.


But then again, the alleged fair tax was not created with Mary and Joe Sixpack in mind. It is designed to benefit the Washington Establishment and its millions of political plum job holders who are rewarded quite handsomely for doubling as Congress’s foot soldiers during election time, and helping to prop up the Washington Establishment.


Want to know how well these federal department of education plum job holders are rewarded by Congress? You may want to sit down before reading the following.


FEDERAL EMPLOYEE OVERVIEW





Now wait a second, Mary and Joe Sixpack’s average annual wage amounts to only $40-45 K. Why are Mary and Joe, earning less than those they employee?


In addition, here are other federal employee ``benefits`` which Huckabee plans to tax Mary and Joe to finance:


Life insurance plan___ Mary and Joe Sixpack get to pay 1/3 of a government workers federal life insurance plan.


Federal Employees Dental & Vision Program is a full coverage plan and federal employees get to use pre-tax dollars to pay for their vision and dental premiums while Mary and Joe are forced to use after taxed dollars to fund their Dental & Vision plan.


Under the federal employee retirement system, there is a tax-deferred savings plan known as the ``Thrift Savings Plan``. Under this plan, federal workers may contribute up to 10% of their salaries to the plan, with Mary and Joe Sixpack being taxed to match up to 5% of a federal employees contribution.


Also under the Civilian Service Retirement System a federal employee contributes 7% of their paycheck to retirement while Mary and Joe Sixpack are forced to match that 7 % out of their paychecks.


And, with reference to health insurance, which is in addition to the above mentioned dental and vision plan, see Federal Employees to See Moderate Rise in Health Insurance Premiums





What the article meant to state is, Mary and Joe Sixpack, who can barely meet their own health care needs, get to pick up about 70 percent of the premium costs to provide health care to federal employees and their families.


And you think the alleged fair tax which Huckabee promotes is designed to benefit Mary and Joe Sixpack? Only a soft spoken flim flam con artist could ever make one to believe that nonsense.


Federalist Paper No. 45 tells us:



So tell us Mike Huckabee, old boy, why does the alleged fair tax have to be so high? Did our founding fathers suffer the same type of enslavement?


“He has erected a multitude of new offices(Washington‘s existing political plum job Empire) , and sent hither swarms of officers, to harass our people, and eat out their substance” ___Declaration of Independence

JWK

If we can make the majority of America’s population dependent upon a monthly federal government check, [H.R.25`s "family consumption allowance" which Huckabee supports], we can then bribe them for their vote, keep ourselves in power, and keep the remaining portion of America’s population enslaved to pay the bills.

I see the one trick pony is back to his one trick. Hi, John.

How many federal employees have political appointments? I'll bet that overall, it's less than 2%. In my agency, for decades, it was one person in over 100,000.

The current federal pension system is not extravagant, and the old CSRS was not, either. An employee only receives 1% credit for each year served, and they and their employer contribute to the TSP.

I don't use the Dental and Vision insurance program, but using pretax dollars to pay for it is a feature available to many Sixpack employees in good firms. My son works for a bank/insurance company that has such a plan.

For this year, my premiums go up about 7% for my health plan as a retiree. My CSRS COLA is only 2% for the new year. Inflation, understated, was 2.3%.

Average federal salaries are higher because virtually no unskilled or manual laborers are in the service; those jobs were contracted out, long ago. Many of the jobs are for highly trained engineers, lawyers, physicians, accountants, etc. I was often in an adversarial exchange with lawyers and accountants who made triple my salary.

Taxpayers pay for govt. employees to work hard. Those who don't work hard (in or out of govt. service) should be fired. In my work as a federal employee, the treasury GAINED five to ten dollars for every dollar it ever paid me.

Federal employees are taxpayers, too! In fact, the facts stated above prove that they probably pay far more taxes than the Sixpacks do.

The move to Nirvana has worked miracles for you FIT. You have effectivley claimed to have invented the elusive perpetual motion machine.

With all of that spare time figure out how tax payers paid you a nickel and got a quarter in return for most of your professional life. The one fault with every proposed perpetual machine has been the unaccounted input of work. Yours appears to be the National debt, and the fact that you will be paid much more and much more reliably than Joe Six. And bye the bye what does your retirement pay do to your calculation of $5-$10 collected per dollar paid on the job?

Otherwise lets mandate every American work for the US government.

Or it could be that you didn't make the American citizen a penny more than they sent their government, but rather embarassed government employees and trustees for the cheats they are, causing them to return or eliminate their thievery. Your salary may have been well spent, but certainly doesn't represent money well spent in our government by Joe Six. In that case, but don't act as if Joe and Jane Six struggling to find a way for their children to go to college, yet still pay for your retirement in Mexican Villas on sunny beach front retirement communities should be grateful because they will probably die before they retire because you didn't find $100's per hour per dollar rather than $10. The government was growing faster and spending more than you found, and they continue to pay you, what an outrage. We should have cleared out all government facilities 30 years ago and started over.

I, too, worked for the Federal Government and have also worked for the private for-profit and private non-profit and tax exempt businesses which are supported by grants and United Way.

I can truthfully say that my hands were tied by the Federal VA job to the extent I was ashamed that I couldn't help the Vets the same way (speed-wise and quality-of-service-wise) that I did (doing the same job ) for the civilian population (because of the red tape) involved in the Fed job. Yes, my salary was higher, but the inept "goings on" and systems were for the convenience of the employees, not the people they were supposed to be serving....the Vet. And, yet, the people were not "fired" who were not doing their job because it is impossible to fire a government employee who has been granted full-time employment after the first year probation time, without a special case being presented to Washington.

So, "good words," Fit about the "should be fired." But, very empty.

iswhatis, I worked for the supply side of the federal govt. My work created revenue, thus the term "Internal Revenue Service." The congressman in charge of the IRS oversight committee, J. J. Pickle of Austin, used to brag "It's great to send money to fund certain IRS projects, and receive back ten times as much revenue!"

Yes we had red tape, even more red tape than big multinational companies do. I'm not defending that. My luxurious beachfront villa during retirement years rented for $85 per month, but I went back to Brownsville, where I couldn't earn more than $7.50 per hour. You know more about luxury than I do. I raised six kids on one man's salary. I earned all my pensions and my health benefits.

That's the risk we take, trader, for saying anything personal about our own lives on forums. We can be a cyberfreak with totally false identity, taking any stand we wish, lying about our past. Or, like you and I, we can be honest enough to mention what we have done in our lives. That, however, exposes us to the kinds of personal attacks that both you and I have engaged in here, which has not made us better men.

Good conscience is a funny, fickle thing. You and I could serve in the military conscientiously at the time, and then were free after we got out to say, "That was wrong, what I did then!" My retirement from the IRS hasn't done that to me. American citizens (perhaps more than illegal aliens in the USA) cheat and steal from the IRS, making more honest folks like you and me pay more than our 'fair share,' however much that is. Am I supposed to confess for the sin of increasing the tax liability of one of the world's largest oil companies by about $150,000 plus interest? Should I repent that I caught people who were claiming their liability was $1000 when it was $25,000? The answer is no. The IRS never asked me to kill anybody, and I didn't. Can you say the same for the U S Marine Corps, and can you repent?

Would you mind pointing out which line on the 1040 or which schedule attachment obligates the honest folks to pay an additional X percentage of their income to offset the cheaters and stealers?

And did the thought ever cross your mind that there would be a whole lot less cheaters and stealers if the money taken by the IRS were spent wisely instead of building bridges to nowhere in Alaska or funding absurdities like the UN or global warmimg studies.

Fact is, Fit, it is our money. We earned it not the Feds. But I'll be damned if I want any of my tax dollars going to welfare queens that can't cross their skanky legs and keep popping out new welfare recipients.

I am in no position to be able to screw the IRS but there were many a time I regretted not getting into a cash business.

Nomad, not all Medicaid recipients are skanky women who pop out babies.

Many are the elderly who don't make enough Medicare (under $500mo) to live on, some are women who have stayed home to raise children and are now divorced putting themselves through college, some are children and adults who have disabilities and can't work, and some singles/marrieds work but don't make enough to pay recurrent medical bills that hospitals charge such as a child having recurrent pneumonia or breathing problems, seizures, etc.

And many moms have been cut from Medicaid on a gradual basis while being taught work skills and are now off Medicaid, leaving only those with greatest need on Medicaid. Been a social worker for 20+ years..........and know the myths that are believed by those that do not know the real picture.

Solo I know the real picture. Billions could be saved by allowing the states to take care of those truly in need. Anything the Fed touches as far as social programs go they Fk up.

Thanks at least a bit, Nomad, for getting off the personal attacks on me and getting back to the issues at hand.

There is no such line on Form 1040, except the jurat above your signature, where you state that the income statement is true and correct to the best of your knowledge and belief. That's where the cheaters cheat; the rest is introductory Economics 101. If Joe and Mary Sixpack and Enron and Al Capone are not paying their fair share, you and I pay more than our fair share.

Yes, lots of things have crossed my mind about income taxes in the last 35 or more years. There would be less cheaters if the govt. only spent money as the taxpayers individually designated. It never works that way, never, not even at state and local level.

Yes, you earned that money, but NO IT IS NOT OUR MONEY! As Jesus pointed out, pay taxes to Caesar because the tax money belongs to Caesar, not to God and not to the taxpayer! You will be damned if you don't follow Jesus' commands, and you'll be damned to prison if you are convicted of tax crimes.

Write your Congressional leaders. Vote differently. Be like john w k here, and try for tax reform. Tell them how to change the laws to stop the insane drain on your wallet. No welfare queens have stolen or wasted 0.0001% as much federal money as the Pentagon.

Was it you, Nomad, who stated in effect that we should spend hundreds of trillions of dollars on defense, even if it bankrupted you?

Welfare recipients ARE Medicaid recipients. ?? What type of welfare are you talking about?

Tax dollars barely bail these folks out.............

I hope you aren't serious that you think elderly folks deliberately planned to make less than $500 a mo in order to get Medicaid, people with disabilities planned to be disabled and failed to make financial arrangements to cover those disabilities, and that divorced mothers with children planned to be financially bereft and didn't make arrangements????

That's the risk we take, trader, for saying anything personal about our own lives on forums.

First off, FITS, you made claims that were just bluntly false in the majority of IRS activities which are as much interpretative and legally debatable, as factual in most and many cases. You left out how much absolute power heavy handedness those at the IRS use in often as not, Brown shirt like tactics and activities within the IRS as a whole.

You left out that this corporation you claimed to have caught and penalized may have been as much a victim of the maze of IRS conflicting interpretations, case law interpretations IRS regs, as well as case Officer competence, which was widely dispersed and wholly uneven, as much as about someone doing something wrong in error or on purpose.

You left out the fact that more than 80% of all tax cheaters get away with cheating as much for IRS ineptness as its under-manned and under funding, in Congressional purposeful efforts to keep it weak. You left out that such a Corporation as you describe as a “large Oil Corporation” would be a Chapter S, thus not subject to income tax and that any taxes it pays are merely passed on to its shareholders as a liability to them.

You left off that the IRS Brown shirts by audit statistics mostly attack Chapter C corporations that are small Business or partnernship and the self employed, who are subject to income tax and that is likely whom you found in error as likely as anything else, some mom amd pop level small Business Corporation.

Having been at HLS, Treasury, the Comptroller of Currency and FDCI/RTC I have a real inside view of how the IRS really works and it is not pretty and d a m n well not compassionate nor forgiving.

There were and still are compleling reasons the Congress passed the Taxpayer Bill of Rights III on July 22, 1998, which shifted the burden of proof from the taxpayer to the IRS.

Likewise, the size of the account for IRS Form 433-F, is not unsubstantial, now is it?


We can be a cyberfreak with totally false identity, taking any stand we wish, lying about our past. Or, like you and I, we can be honest enough to mention what we have done in our lives. That, however, exposes us to the kinds of personal attacks that both you and I have engaged in here, which has not made us better men.

Then again FITs, you being so insecure, once again you look past, that the Attack, if there was one, was on what you said, not you who said it, but them again to you these do not differentiate, do they?

Good conscience is a funny, fickle thing. You and I could serve in the military conscientiously at the time, and then were free after we got out to say, "That was wrong, what I did then!"

Again FITS this mere BS, if all you have said is true, you never did anything that your conscious said was wrong in the Military, now did you?

As for me, I have not only a good, but at peace consciences as to what occurred direct with me while in Vietnam, knowing I did what needed to be done for my men, myself and the Vietnamese.

What is so pediatric about this illusion of Consciousness that you fallacious conscious freaks presume, is that you, somehow rationalize yourselves, in righteousness, by assuming warriors do not do things, in war, as much to save lives as take them. Your unawareness of that, “been there reality” proves to me you never faced the issue of deciding life and or death for yourself and or others in the milliseconds of decision time war allows one to contemplate such things.

My retirement from the IRS hasn't done that to me. American citizens (perhaps more than illegal aliens in the USA) cheat and steal from the IRS, making more honest folks like you and me pay more than our 'fair share,' however much that is.

Give me a break, the biggest revolving door lobby group in America is the IRS, former IRS, accountants and tax lawyers. But that is exactly the brown shirt mentality of the IRS I speak of, that ITS OUR MONEY, when we both know it is the peoples money taxed and spent unwisely by generations of Lustful Congresses.

As for cheating, well I would lay that at the feet of a greedy congress, incapable to comprehend IRS Statutory law, case law, and IRS rules and regulations as well as the widely dispersed quality of IRS agents abilities. All as much or more than you, who would lay the blame on the American people instead.

What you and Congress don’t get is the American people operate on the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) principle, while you guys glaze over in your mazes of who knows, well ask him, he may know and we have conflicting obscure opinions on that, principles.

Am I supposed to confess for the sin of increasing the tax liability of one of the world's largest oil companies by about $150,000 plus interest? Should I repent that I caught people who were claiming their liability was $1000 when it was $25,000? The answer is no. The IRS never asked me to kill anybody, and I didn't

Now that is laughable both to the extent of how proud you were to get a guy who owed $25,000 and a Giant Oil Conglomerate who owed ONLY $150,000, no it is insidiously insane that your proud of that as if it was a major thing in your entire life. Then again maybe it was?

ONE OF THE WORLD'S LARGEST OIL COMPANIES, who transacts hundreds of billions in very complex tax and tax free, structured transactions, did not pay $150,000 plus penalties and you think that is a big deal making them roll the taxes they did not owe as an S Corp over onto their Millions of shareholders as a liability. Cheeze FITS, that is remarkable.

Can you say the same for the U S Marine Corps, and can you repent?

LOL, how trite and superficially immature, then, what is one to expect from the IRS, life of deception.

Actually I can, the Marine Corp never once ASK “ME” TO KILL ANYONE, not once. Some guy or guys tried to kill me, or my men and well he or they died instead. So, am I full of guilt and need to repent that he or they are dead and not me and or my men. You bet you arse. I am not. I am proud to have been given a chance to live a full life, disabled or not.

More importantly I am sadly proud to say I knew and saw great men die, so many others could live, including our own, and both. un-friendly and friendly Vietnamese, Cambodians and Laotians, a few Aussys and some Korean Marines as well.

"When a prophet speaketh in the Name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him" (Deuteronomy 18:22).


"Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them" (Romans 16:17).

That is all!!

Even if this is the Bearpit, let's get back to John w k's favorite subject, which probably is that the proposed law for a FAIR TAX wouldn't be fair. John wants us to revert to the Constitution. How quaint, how archaically quaint and obsolete. Oh wait, ustrader has already shown us that the President can wage war without Congress declaring war.

A fair tax would simply tax income, gross income, and net profit. No personal deductions, no exemptions, nothing for mortgage interest or child care or dependents, nothing for marital status, nothing for charitable donations, just a graduated tax on gross income. Social Security tax (FICA, Medicare and SE Tax) is kind of like that.

That's not all!!

Don't you read responses to your statements, Fit? You just keep writing the same thing over and over as if it wasn't addressed and proven wrong. I do believe that either iswhatitis or boh has already spoken to this on another thread, as well as me.

Do youi read your constant nitpicking at me? What do you think about a FAIR TAX? Can you devise a fair tax that's simple, revenue neutral, easily forecast, that requires no IRS, just honest payments of some kind of tax by Americans?

Hey, guy. YOU are the one that brought up your favorite hobbyhorse subjects........"war"..........and "pacifism"........ in this thread on Fair Tax. Don't overlook the beam in your own eye regarding your bringing up irrelevant subject matter.

Regarding your post on war and congress and Bush, I nitpick when I see you ridicule others, including me, over points that have already been discussed and bring them up as if they hadn't been already discussed and answered....... and bring these subjects in a thread COMPLETELY unrelated to your favorite hobbyhorse subjects.

FYI, I'm in favor of the FAIR TAX. You?

Even if this is the Bearpit, let's get back to John w k's favorite subject, which probably is that the proposed law for a FAIR TAX wouldn't be fair. John wants us to revert to the Constitution. How quaint, how archaically quaint and obsolete.

Actually, FITS in your usual Hubris of misinformation, you fail to recognize that John W. K’s point more than urging us all to revert to the Constitution, is more a plea to change the constitution, than revert back to it. I guess at the IRS you guys never were trained in what the 16th Amendment to the Constitution was all about hey?

W.K's position is one which urges us, in effect to be lawful, to amend the Constitution striking the 16th Amendment and the mounds upon mounds of case law confirming its constitutionality and revert back to the Founder’s position that States Rights power was to be, over the Central Government. the supreme law of the land.

A Pre- War of the Rebellion for States right, AKA Civil War constitutional position that laid waste to nearly 900,000 Americans to finnaly determine the issue of strong central Governmentr verse weak Central Government

History and Purpose of the Amendment ([Proposed 1909; Questionably Ratified 1913)

The ratification of this Amendment was the direct consequence of the Court’s decision in 1895 in Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co., whereby the attempt of Congress the previous year to tax incomes
uniformly throughout the United States was held by a divided court to be unconstitutional. A tax on incomes derived from property, the Court declared, was a ‘‘direct tax’’ which Congress
under the terms of Article I, § 2, and § 9, could impose only by the rule of apportionment according to population, although scarcely fifteen years prior the Justices had unanimously sustained the
collection of a similar tax during the Civil War, the only other occasion preceding the Sixteenth Amendment in which Congress had ventured to utilize this method of raising revenue.

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/constitution/pdf/con027.pdf

According to the United States Government Printing Office, the following states ratified the amendment:[19]

1. Alabama (August 10, 1909)
2. Kentucky (February 8, 1910)
3. South Carolina (February 19, 1910)
4. Illinois (March 1, 1910)
5. Mississippi (March 7, 1910)
6. Oklahoma (March 10, 1910)
7. Maryland (April 8, 1910)
8. Georgia (August 3, 1910)
9. Texas (August 16, 1910)
10. Ohio (January 19, 1911)
11. Idaho (January 20, 1911)
12. Oregon (January 23, 1911)
13. Washington (January 26, 1911)
14. Montana (January 27, 1911)
15. Indiana (January 30, 1911)
16. California (January 31, 1911)
17. Nevada (January 31, 1911)
18. South Dakota (February 1, 1911)
19. Nebraska (February 9, 1911)
20. North Carolina (February 11, 1911)
21. Colorado (February 15, 1911)
22. North Dakota (February 17, 1911)
23. Michigan (February 23, 1911)
24. Iowa (February 24, 1911)
25. Kansas (March 2, 1911)
26. Missouri (March 16, 1911)
27. Maine (March 31, 1911)
28. Tennessee (April 7, 1911)
29. Arkansas (April 22, 1911, after having previously rejected the amendment)
30. Wisconsin (May 16, 1911)
31. New York (July 12, 1911)
32. Arizona (April 3, 1912)
33. Minnesota (June 11, 1912)
34. Louisiana (June 28, 1912)
35. West Virginia (January 31, 1913)
36. New Mexico (February 3, 1913)


Ratification (by the requisite thirty-six states) was completed on February 3, 1913 with the ratification by New Mexico (but see Delaware and Wyoming below). The amendment was subsequently ratified by the following states, bringing the total number of ratifying states to forty-two (42) of the forty-eight( 48) then existing:

37. Delaware (February 3, 1913)
38. Wyoming (February 3, 1913)
39. New Jersey (February 4, 1913)
40. Vermont (February 19, 1913)
41. Massachusetts (March 4, 1913)
42. New Hampshire (March 7, 1913, after rejecting the amendment on March 2, 1911)

The following states rejected the amendment without ever subsequently ratifying it:
1. Connecticut
2. Florida, which rejected the amendment after it had already been ratified by three-fourths of the states
3. Rhode Island
4. Utah

The following states never took up the proposed amendment:
1. Pennsylvania
2. Virginia


A fair tax would simply tax income, gross income, and net profit. No personal deductions, no exemptions, nothing for mortgage interest or child care or dependents, nothing for marital status, nothing for charitable donations, just a graduated tax on gross income. Social Security tax (FICA, Medicare and SE Tax) is kind of like that.

Exactly the first pillar would be one tax rate, no exceptions for all, individuals, groups, businesses and or
otherwise any sources of income what so ever.

However, that one pillar will not keep the entire structure standing. The second pillar would need an Absolute irrevocable Balance Budget authority with a “rainy day withholding percentage of all revenues for contingences.

The Third pillar would need an absolute Proportionally provision whereby No individual, group, locality and or State would receive any amount not equal in proportion to any other.

Lastly, the egalitarian pillar among the states and localities would be needed, like in some states, which have Robin Hood Provisions, whereby the wealthier entities would have to partition their excesses to the less wealthy, in a pool, proportionally, so as to level the wealth field.

Then again, that is Socialism, and egalitarianism, where the best are lowered to the mediocre to be fair and equitable. A scheme that has failed in every variant tried to date as it disincentives innovation and personal achievement.

Oh wait, ustrader has already shown us that the President can wage war without Congress declaring war.

What is amazing is a man in his mid to late 60’s does not know that has always been the case. In fact, in all of America’s History, it has officially declared war only 5 times.

Though Article one, section 8 of the Constitution says “Congress has the power to declare war,” it does not specify any necessity for it to do so, nor any circumstance and or format for it to do so. In fact in all of our history the procedural precedence for Congress to “declare war” is from a formal request of the President only. No war has ever been declared, by the United States without a Presidential request to Congress for it.

Yet to be legally contested Constitutional authority, embedded in that 1973 Congressional grab for power the 1973 War Powers Resolution ( Public L. 93-198) is not an absolute constraint on the president at all.

In fact, it is by its implied limiting and NOT wholly exclusionary authority over the President war powers, an acknowledgment and presumption by Congress, the President does in fact have the authority to conduct war, and thus, in order to not imperil this Congressional grab for power, merely tries to limit the President's war power without Congressional approval. If he did not have such powwer they would have excluded his power if they could have consitutionally.

An unnoticed reason the far left is so frustrated with Congress as to Johnson and Bush in particular, is exactly that fear by Congress. That if challenged, this grab of presumed, yet legally unchallenged power, by Congress, may indeed be struck down as unconstitutional, leaving them less able to deal with the Presidential war power authority always given to every President up and until 1973.

There is a real reason no Declaration of war has been declared, since 1941, if one had the sense and common logic to realize it.

Another old thing FITS and friends attempt to ignore is the vague Congressional authorizations for war, given, in large majority, not only by Congress to go to war, but in de-fact authority, in funding it ever since.

Likewise, as well, is the vague but wholly NOT denying of UN authorization for the Iraq war, which has been, oddly if illegal, re-authorized by the UN, now 6 times giving its authority for Collaltion involvement through 2008.

If the Iraq war is illegal, then Congress and the UN as much and perhaps more than anyone else, made it legal by their actions and subsequent actions.

That's more than all!!

I believe Fit is in his 7th decade, not his 6th.

Solo, there is without a doubt those that are truly in need. But these needs must be addresses at the community or state level not the federal level. There are too many that scam the system now that would not be able to were there local oversight.

You said you weren't "talking about Medicaid, but about welfare," and then stated that welfare is Medicaid, food stamps, and Section 8 housing. Both the food stamp program and Medicaid are state programs....not federal programs. Section 8 housing is the only Federal program you mentioned. And, while "local oversight" sounds romantic, as stated above Medicaid and the food stamp program are state programs with "local oversight." And, if the logic of what you said were true there would be no crimes in cities, which are "local."

The folks that are are on Medicaid grew up during the Depression and afterwards when salaries weren't high enough to make that much contribution to the S.S. system to meet today's cost of living. You do realize that men used to make pennies per hour? Here is what people made beginning in 1950. How much do you think they contributed into Social Security? Not enough to keep their boat afloat with today's COL.

Don't know what you mean about lawyers helping people get on Medicaid........ What has that to do with my question about people planning to become disabled? The fact is that NO ONE plans to become disabled. You know that, Nomad.

The fact is, Nomad, the statements you've made are just the myths that people tell themselves who are unaware of the facts about "welfare." Just as prevalent as the myths of rape. And, yes, you are supposed to care for those that can't care for themselves. I do think you read the bible, correct?

Excellent replies by both ustrader and SoloNav.

A little bit off direct topic but good reading.

DOJ Dismisses IRS 1040 non filing case.

Not totally off topic. The Paperwork Reduction Act is one of many federal requirements (outside of the incredibly complex Tax Code itself), that can result in a technical problem. The citation provided above is clearly anti-income tax, anti-IRS, and clearly biased in its own interpretations of what the court said, or the arcane rules of tax law prosecution.

Anyway, I just checked several 1040 documents, including the standard blue Form 1040. and they all had OMB numbers on them. Attorneys strictly follow Jesus' commandment not to go into court if they stand a chance of loosing.

Was that a sense of humor? LOL good one fit.

Did the 1040s you looked at have the other required verbage?

No, I wasn't really joking! I mean, if you think those attorneys (of any court) are fearless, you should see them behind the scenes, paranoid that they'll overlook one technicality that will get the case thrown out. So, whether or not they're Christian, they follow that advice by Jesus, and back out and make a settlement or full retreat rather than go to court and lose. They actually rate themselves on their court success.

I looked at literally hundreds of thousands of 1040's in 22 years (for several weeks, I looked at a thousand partnership returns per work day!), and almost never checked if the jurat (oath-swearing part near the bottom) or the OMB numbers (at the top) were there. Even an IRS attorney might not think to check.

You can tamper with a 1040, and I wonder if the accused in this case had removed the OMB numbers himself, and then used it as his defense!

I was involved in one case where the private attorney intentionally altered the government's offer to settle for 100% disallowance, and altered it to only a 10% disallowance. My coworker signed it without seeing it had been altered! The genius private attorney won the case on appeal, on standard business contract law, not on tax law!

As I remember he was charged for not filing as well as not paying, so, there was no 1040 for him to alter. As I read the article he won on the grounds that there were none with this number. As you say this may have changed. It also mentioned that the form must reference the statute. That statute would have to be backed up by a law. Does such a law exist? If so, which one is it?