Republican Platform Calls for Value-added Tax Scheme

Kurt Nimmo

Infowars.com

September 1, 2012

Ann Romney says you can trust her husband.

Probably the most memorable moment of the Republican dog and pony
show in Tampa earlier this week occurred when Ann Romney said “you can
trust Mitt.” She didn’t elaborate, but Mitt’s handlers did. They
promised Mitt will restore fiscal responsibility, expand the military,
and cut taxes.

The last one is betrayed by the Republican platform.

“The 2012 Republican Platform calls for a complete overhaul of the
federal tax system. No surprise there. But then it endorses a
value-added tax or national sales tax as one possible solution to the
nation’s budget problems. This is shocking,” writes Jim McTague for Barron’s.

In order to sell this, the Republicans say they will only move to
institute a value added tax – a tax that confiscates money at all stages
of the production process – but only if the Sixteenth Amendment is
repealed.

In 1909, a Republican Congress devised the Sixteenth amendment. It
allows the government to levy an income tax without apportioning it
among the states. It was ratified in 1913 despite the fact it undermines
the constitutional requirements regarding direct taxes.

In January, Romney refused to rule out a value-added tax,
which is a hidden tax and more politically acceptable. Herman Cain’s
9-9-9 tax plan also had a VAT (as represented by the last 9), and
Romney’s supposed Tea Party friendly vice president pick, Paul Ryan,
included a value-added tax in his “roadmap” scheme.

Obama and the Democrats also like the VAT idea because they realize
increasing income taxes on the rich will not generate the revenue they
require to keep expanding the size of government. Obama has said
he thinks value-added taxes are “something that has worked for other
countries.” Obama and the Democrats have not specifically called for a
VAT because they are politically addicted to the class warfare mantra
that brings disgruntled Americans to the polls.

Both Democrats and Republicans love confiscatory taxation, they just
disagree on the best way to force it on the American people. Republicans
are especially squeamish about open taxation because they have spent
the last few decades claiming they are the party of small government and
minimal taxation, which is of course a lie.

Despite all the self-serving rhetoric, Republicans have worked
closely with Democrats to impose more taxes on working middle class
Americans. The latest example is the so-called Marketplace Fairness Act,
which is, despite its misleading title, an internet sales tax. “They
introduced their internet tax as an amendment to a Senate small business
bill, but that bill stalled. Now they are confident they can sneak the internet tax into a lame duck session of Congress, just in time for Christmas shopping,” Erick Erickson wrote for RedState in July. A lot of Republicans love the idea.

Romney also favors cap-and-trade and a carbon tax, although he has
addressed the issue obliquely in order to pretend he is some kind of
“conservative” opposed to further decimating the middle class with
taxation. In 2007, when asked if he was in favor of adopting carbon
taxes, Romney said: “Carbon tax? That’s something we’re looking into.” Romney’s economic adviser, Gregory Mankiw, took to the pages of the New York Times in September of 2007 and argued in favor of carbon taxes.