“The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.“

– Albert Einstein

Taxes are always too high, at the federal, state, and local levels.  Elected officials are thirsty for more of our money to finance their programs and big plans (or more accurately, boondoggles) and to pay off their big campaign contributors.  I will never vote to raise taxes.

Democratic and Republican politicians are always quite willing to raise taxes. Sure, Republicans cut tax rates sometimes (but fail to cut spending), but taxes at all levels are at historic high levels. Half of what we earn goes to taxes at the federal, state, and local levels. The federal income tax is the biggest government intrusion into the lives of the American people, to the tune of $2.6 trillion to be extracted from us in Fiscal Year 2022. It forces every worker to be a bookkeeper, to open his records to the government, to explain his expenses, and to fear conviction for a harmless accounting error. Compliance wastes hundreds of billions of dollars. The income tax discourages savings and creates an enormous drag on the U.S. economy. 

The federal government is way too large and interferes in too many aspects of our lives. We must get rid of the hundreds of federal agencies and programs that violate our rights and drag down the economy at the same time.  Sadly, it’s next to impossible to end a government program, since each program has beneficiaries and supporters who will fight to keep their place at the public trough. I want to combine massive spending cuts into a single package that includes the largest tax cut in American history — the total repeal of the federal income tax. The 100.6 million Americans who pay federal income tax would each see an average of $25,844 per person back in their pockets.

There are proposals to replace the income tax with a flat tax or a national sales tax. I will work to repeal the income tax, abolish the IRS, and replace them with nothing. Even without the personal income tax, the federal government would still collect the same total amount that they did 12 years ago – and the government was much too large even then. The Constitution allows only a limited role for the federal government, such as national defense, the post office and patents and copyrights. By reducing the federal government to it proper level, we could not only do away with the income tax, but the estate tax, capital gains tax and Social Security tax as well.

Not only does the federal government collect too much money, it spends much more than it collects, and budget deficits keep growing each year.  The national debt doubled under President George W. Bush, doubled again under President Barack Obama, and went up $7 trillion under President Donald Trump, and has risen $6 trillion since President Joe Biden was elected.  It now exceeds $33 trillion – $97,000 for every man, woman, and child in this country. No one seems to care – except Libertarians.  Only Libertarians will cut spending, cut the deficit, and stop adding to this insane debt level that is totally unsustainable.