Apr 7, 2006, What do our minimum wage laws and our income tax structure have to do with the illegal immigrant / national security problem?

Everything. They are the causative factors. Aside from the fact that many millions of illegal aliens are here, by definition, illegally, showing that some of our laws are not properly enforced in the first place, the lion's share of illegal aliens are here because of simple free market forces: it is profitable for them to be here. They work right beside a very small minority of Americans operating in an under-cover, quasi-criminal, paid-under-the-counter, tax-evading, identity-hiding, counter-culture.

I submit for your consideration that the problem could be solved by the adoption and rigid enforcement of five policies. I also submit that, it will never happen, because the Democratic Party and other Socialist organizations will never allow any of these actions to be either adopted, or rigidly enforced. In point of fact, the Left is undertaking efforts in some American localities to grant illegal aliens the right to vote in our elections. (Probably, if they could, they would like to bombard the mountain regions between Pakistan and Afghanistan with absentee ballots, so that even Osama baby could have some say in how we are governed.) In their view, its all a Global Village, you know.

Note their Orwellian Newspeak weasel-words on this topic: strict avoidance of the term illegal aliens in preference to the term undocumented immigrants. It helps the cause of the borderless Global Village movement to brush aside the illegal aspect and paint the opposition as being anti immigrant or even racist.

1. Get control of our borders, as a national security imperative. Whatever it takes, the borders need to be made secure against human beings just crossing back and forth at will. If it means cycling various National Guard and Reserve units through stints of border patrol duty, or relocating military bases to facilitate border coverage, or building walls and employing high-tech devices and robots, or all of these things and more, we need to be secure within our own borders.

2. Make it a serious, high-penalty felony for anyone to employ illegal aliens, and start sending employers to prison for hard time. After the first few farmers and sweat-shop runners went to prison, most of the others would immediately fire all their illegal alien employees, eliminating the market almost overnight. Among the first to be charged under this law should be some of the filthy rich Democrats who employ lots of illegal alien servants.

Doing this one thing would eliminate the need to spend even one thin dime to try and round up all the millions and millions of illegal aliens all over the country and incarcerate and/or deport them. Because, as soon as it no longer paid them to be here, they would leave. And they would leave the same way they got here, or they would go somewhere else. The only reason they come to America in the first place is that it pays them very well, very lucratively, by their standards, to come to America; if they can't make more money here than they can somewhere else, then they will go somewhere else. It's a free market thing; if this market dries up, they will look for another one.

3. Eliminate the minimum wage. I submit that there is a huge market for workers here that are perfectly willing to work for rates below the legal minimum wage. As evidence for that argument, I offer the presence of an estimated 11 million-plus illegal aliens in this country, a significant fraction of which works well below the minimum wage. They risk a great deal, travel a great distance, pay smugglers and criminals money to get them here, so that they can work for what we call sub-standard wages under sub-standard conditions, essentially living and operating in a counter-culture.

How would that effect lower-scale jobs such as in the fast-food industry now? Probably not much. I doubt that either Wendy's or McDonald's would like to be the first one to try going for a lower class worker who probably can't speak English to take their orders and flip their burgers. They are probably well situated in a market niche with satisfactory employees and not willing to gamble much on product and service quality. You get what you pay for, in emplyees, too.

Whether that assessment is correct or not is largely irrelevant, because, many would argue, myself included, the free market and not the government should determine such things as wages and prices anyway. If we have no legal limit at the top end of how much a worker can earn, then, why do we have an absolute legal limit at the bottom end for what a worker can earn? To increase unemployment?

Probably 95% of jobs in America fit into industry-wide, well established pay scale ranges far above minimum wage, and most that are not are already bound by union or other contractual limitations. People who don't wish to work at sub-minimum wage jobs do not have to accept sub-minimum wage jobs. There are plenty in America today who have never and would not accept a minimum wage job today; their situation will not change at all. But someone who is willing and able to work for less should not be denied.

4. A Version of President Bush's Guest Worker program. We need a new, as recommended, secure and counterfeit-proof identification document for non-American citizens who want to work here. Personally, I wonder if there ever could be anything that could not be, eventually, counterfeited. But it should be as difficult as possible to duplicate, and a credential that should present and easy way for anyone, including an employer, to verify its authenticity. The only places on Earth where these identification documents could be applied for and received should be American embassies in foreign countries.

So, if some illegal alien who is already here would like to get one, so that he can go back to work, here, legally, then he will need to get his butt back home to his native land and get in line at an American embassy.

5. Replace the Income Tax (and all other taxes) with a Sales Tax. This last one would only work if it specifically replaced, by legally eliminating and de-legitimatizing all other forms of tax, except existing sales taxes. Otherwise, a new Sales Tax would simply be added to the existing and growing pantheon of taxes we are already burdened with. What we do not need is just one more tax.

Think about a National Sales tax for a minute. We already have such things in place, at the gas pump, for instance. There are federal and state taxes on every gallon of gas you pump; in some places the tax you are paying amounts to over half the price. The retailer sends the tax dollars on their way to the taxing authorities. When you buy hunting and other outdoor equipment, you are paying special sales taxes; most States have a sales tax; much of what you buy right now is subject to some form of sales tax that is automatically collected at the register, and totally handled at the retail level.

Imagine replacing all taxes, including even Social Security taxes, with a National Sales tax. I would bet that ten percent would be too much and would produce far more revenue than is being brought in now. But even if it were higher, would it be worth it, for prices to rise that much?

Well, for one thing, everyone working in America would have just gotten a huge, monumental, unprecedented, permanent pay raise. No more payroll tax deductions. And, all of their employers would have just gotten a huge, monumental, unprecedented, permanent increase in revenues. No more corporate (or other business) taxes. Now, this last one will make every Leftie in America fizzle, sizzle, foam at the mouth and then explode, because in the Socialist view, all corporate profits are evil, evil, and to increase corporate profits would be tantamount to rewarding the Capitalist exploiters!

Well, I don't know about you, but I like seeing Lefties explode. President Reagan said that corporations don't pay taxes; only people pay taxes. And he was right. Right now, if you raise corporate taxes, corporations will raise prices, and you - the consumer - will pay the increase in corporate taxes. That's the way it works. Just like if you raise property taxes, landlords will raise rents. But, I submit, the reverse is also true; if you eliminate much of the cost of doing business here, business will grow here, and, foreign business will seek to come here. Again, it's a free market thing.

Imagine never filing your income taxes any more, because the need has been eliminated. Indeed, much of the purpose of the IRS, like the typical corporate tax accounting staff, like corporate tax attorneys and even companies such as H&R Block, will have been eliminated, overnight. All those people would have to find something else to do for a living, but few would be unhappy to see the IRS just go away.

Think about it: what business is it of the government's how much money you make, or how much money your Pastor makes? Why does the IRS have anything whatsoever to say about Christian prayer in a public school?

Besides the sheer simplicity of it, and the elimination of huge and stupid tax codes and the need to even file every year, a sales tax is about as close as you can come to an unavoidable tax. Everyone would pay it. Illegal aliens would pay it. Priests, ministers and rabbis would pay it. Criminals would pay it. Anyone who bought anything in a retail store or restaurant or gas station would pay it.

Taking it to the next level, if this came to be Federal law, there would be enormous pressure on States to follow suite. And just as soon as one did, within that state, there would be enormous pressure on all local taxing authorities to follow suite. As a matter of free market competition, and sheer economic survival.

Let's do a thought experiment. Imagine, if you will, the state of Ohio eliminating all forms of tax, except a state sales tax on goods and services. No income taxes; no corporate taxes.

Q: What do you think a whole lot corporations in Kentucky, and Indiana, and Pennsylvania, and Michigan would do? A: Move their operations to Ohio.

Q: What do you think a whole lot of citizens in Kentucky, and Indiana, and Pennsylvania, and Michigan would do? A: Move their residences to Ohio.

It would logically follow that surrounding states would be pressured into adopting the same sort of system. Indeed, once one state did it, that would probably trigger a flat out race among the states to do it before their neighbors did.

If any tax is more onerous than income taxes, it might be property taxes, and estate taxes. I would dearly love to see these taxes be replaced by simple sales taxes. People pay much of their lives to pay off their property, be it ever so humble, only to have to continue paying taxes on it into their old age, and then when they die, the estate taxes are often so confiscatory that it means selling property that could and should have been left to younger family members.

The Lefties will hate that notion, too, because of their basic collectivist, redistributionist, anti-property, anti-family, Marxist, anti-American nature.

But who cares?

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Date: Sun Apr 18 18:06:44 2010
From: Janet Sippel
Email: jansippel@hotmail.com
Location: Copperopolis, CA USA
Comment:

Just discovered your website and will be recommending it to family and friends. While I am most intrigued with your tax ideas, being retired and on a fixed income, I see no benefit to eliminating what we pay in income taxes (we pay none---Social Security and small retirement) but yet we would be hit with significant increases on all purchase. How do you see retirees being affected by your proposal? I believe you are right on target with the socialist and Marxist trends in this country and I can only pray that we don't stay asleep at the wheel too long and wake up too late. Thank you for your wisdom on so many topics.

Date: Sun Apr 18 19:48:01 2010
From: Vic Biorseth
Comment:

Janet:

Thank you so much; I always hope to stir critical thought.

This Webpage was written a long time ago; since I wrote it, I have discovered the Fair Tax, which runs rings around the notion of a simple national sales tax. It is a national sales tax, accompanied by a repeal of the income tax Amendment; but it is nothing like the simple sales tax I had in mind way back when I first wrote this. I encourage you to go to the link and check it out.

How will it help you and other retired people:

1. You will never have to file any annual tax return ever again. No W2s. No 1099s. None of that crappola.
2. The government will have no clue (and it will be none of their business) how much money you make or have.
3. Your Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid will suddenly not be in the red any more, but will be solvent and fully funded on into the future.
4. We will have wrested huge power from the government and returned that power to the people. The IRS, among other huge bureaucracies, would come very close to disappearing. Which means massive cuts in government spending.
5. You will receive a monthly check called a Prebate, of a few hundred dollars, representing the sales or consumption taxes you would have paid on the basic necessities of life. Go to the link for how the Prebate is computed. Everybody gets it. It’s a sort of tax rebate, only paid ahead of time, so nobody has to pay taxes on the absolute necessities of life.

You asked about significant increases on all retail purchases – even that has been figured into the Fair Tax implementation. Basically, right now, as Reagan once said, corporations don’t pay taxes. Never did; never will. When corporations (or any other kind of business) incurs an expense of doing business, including a tax or a tax increase, it ads that expense into the price of it’s product or service. If it were not for taxes, right now, everything we buy would be a whole lot cheaper. The only thing taxing corporations accomplishes is encouraging them to move operations elsewhere for tax reasons, and to be able to lower their prices and be more competitive.

When Fair Tax is implemented, there will probably be a very temporary bump in prices of retail sales of goods and services, by companies who see an opportunity for easy increase in profit. But there are so many competing companies out there that as soon as one of them lowered his prices, he would gain market share and begin to drive the others out of the market if not out of business. They would be forced, by competitive free market forces, to lower their prices in a price war mode, until prices settle somewhere around the tax-free prices of goods and services.

The Fair Tax investigators have determined an average naturally embedded tax level in American goods and services to be about 23%. Therefore, they have recommended beginning Fair Tax at about 23% federal sales tax. Now, that’s an average; some things might be more, some less, but they average out to 23%. Experts predict, and I believe they are right, that after the first brief flurry of price fluctuations, the price of goods and services will settle at exactly where they are today, before the Fair Tax is implemented and while the current 70,000 page federal tax code is in full operation.

So, long story made short, the effect of the price of goods and services to fixed income (and all other) citizens would be, exactly, no change whatsoever. The prices will settle where they are today. Hope this helps.

Regards,

Vic

Date: Mon May 03 16:40:26 2010
From: markbrumbaugh
Email: mark.brumbaugh@sbcglobal.net
Location: Spring, Texas
Comment:

Wonderful post. Please pass it along to the USCCB.

Date: Wed May 05 18:16:29 2010
From: Curmudgeon
Email:
Location:
Comment:

Send it also to the archbishop of Los Angeles, Comrade Mahoney. (I mean Cardinal.)

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