Quote:
Originally Posted by tripods68
Only the Great OBAMA knows the answer to this.
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It's slightly more complicated than that, of course. Obama isn't the one calling for such a tax, and he wouldn't be implementing it by executive order even if he wanted it.
The answer is that it would be additional, at least to start. There's no way the shift from income tax to VAT tax would be made overnight.
Taxes are going to go up. It was inevitable before Obama took office, and it'd be some kind of superinevitable now.
If Americans wanted to truly go to a low-spending, low-tax approach to government, the opportunity was the 2000 election. The economy was humming, and our national defense needs were (relatively) light. It would have been the perfect time to eat some unemployment by taking a trim to the military budget, reorganizing health care (either entirely private or entirely public would be a far better solution than what we have now) and cutting social security benefits.
That ship has sailed. It may be years or decades before there is another window of opportunity, but it's definitely not today.
(to be fair, Americans *did* think they were electing a fiscal conservative in 2000.)