As president, I would help make that dream a reality by working to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and repeal the 16th Amendment that created the federal income tax.
Some doubt whether this can be done. "Can we really abolish the IRS and get rid of the income tax?" they ask. "How would we pay to run the government?"
Few Americans realize that personal income tax dollars represent less than half of federal receipts.
The federal government also receives funding from sources such as tariffs, excise taxes, usage taxes and highway fees. In fact, you could remove the entire personal income tax-funded portion of the budget and the federal government would still receive roughly the same income that it did during the Clinton years. All we would need to do to make this possible would be to cut spending back to 1990s levels, and this is certainly possible, without even touching Social Security and Medicare.
For example, we could easily and quickly save hundreds of billions of dollars by:
- Changing our foreign policy. The United States has more than half a million troops deployed around the world. We should bring them home and pursue a noninterventionist foreign policy, meaning that we should talk and trade with other nations but not engage in the nation-building and undeclared wars that have cost us so much since World War II.
- Abolishing unconstitutional and invasive federal bureaucracies such as the Department of Education. Abolishing the Education Department would benefit us not only by returning our tax dollars, but also by giving control over schools back to local school boards and parents, thereby greatly improving our children's education.
- Stopping foreign aid. Government-to-government foreign aid dollars seldom reach those they are intended to help, due to political wrangling and middlemen looking to make a quick profit.
Additionally, some of those we help with government funds eventually turn on us, just as Osama bin Laden did. Private charities are much more effective at helping the truly needy, and Americans give generously to such causes.
In 1900, "Tax Freedom Day," the day when the average American finishes working to pay for government, was Jan. 22.
In 2007, it fell on April 30. We now work nearly half of the year to satisfy government's appetite, and in return we get skyrocketing debt, onerous regulation and endless global scheming. This is a travesty.
It's time we return to constitutional, fiscally prudent government, before Washington's financial Hindenburg crashes and burns, incinerating our liberties and prosperity.
Together, we can abolish the IRS, repeal the income tax, and cut spending both safely and immediately.
We can reclaim full title to the fruits of our labors, and in so doing enjoy prosperity to a degree that Americans haven't experienced in decades, free from the slavery of mounting debt.
We can make every day "Tax Freedom Day."
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