Put in the flat tax restrained as posted above and eliminate all deductions from income. Just a straight flat tax., no write offs for anything.

Of course! But my reference was to a BBA at state or federal levels, in the event that any new kind of tax policy were to replace the current processes.

The inclusion of a BBA without those limiting processes is a fiction in the sense that it can't and won't do anything to 'limit spending,' per se.

expose the perpetrators of the attacks of 9/11 so that every U.S. citizen had no choice but to admit they were conned; that it was not OBL and 19 hijackers with box cutters who were behind the event.

"Institute a flat tax. A lot of the power and money in Washington is there to influence the tax code. "
The hard part about taxes is working out what's income. How fast can I depreciate a piece of equipment? If I'm buying something ,adding value, and selling it, do I record my costs FIFO or by some averaging formula? Once I find cost, Profit = Revenue - Costs. Multipying by a marginal rate is trivially easy. That's not what makes taxes complicated.

I agree taxes are needless complicated and a gravy train for accountants and attorneys, just not b/c of difficulty calculated tax owed using marginal rates.

People are less likely to tolerate the increased spending if they had to pay for it immediately.

"Then people would see frequently how much is being taken from them."
I think people seeing reality would cause them to demand spending cuts.
I would be really good if every time they pass a law or executive order responding militarily to something in Syria, increasing prison terms, providing a new drug benefit to the elderly, help refugees/immigrants coming to America, the very next week you would start paying the tax. Everything else in life we think if we want to do it and then how much is it going to cost me. If an individual goes mindlessly swiping a credit card at everything that sounds nice, he ends up in the financial situation of the US gov't.

Thanks Radical, I will!

Sorry, there is NO "one thing" which can possibly even Begin to fix this (or any) GOVERNment of Force.
Every darn day we read about all the things wrong and share thoughts about "fixing" them, but while we're failing to tilt one windmill the Rulers are building four more.

The only solution possible is dissolving this government and seizing responsibility for ourselves.

Perhaps not so appealing to some, but the hard fact is that the Global Great Collapse is before us, which will put this (and probably all) governments out of business. At that point the whole planet could become "Galt's Gulch", and the likely-few survivors will take it from there...or not....! What else can do that?

The majority, those fools amidst us, surely cannot. I opt NOT to be Ruled, or to rule others!

Make every new law include a clear, measurable intended result as part of the law, and if not achieved, it become nullified as measured objectively (perhaps judicial branch). Include time limit provision for present laws to provide a suitable control for them. If they are good, they will be re-enacted.

This should get rid of old garbage from the book, ensure that laws do what they say they will and are tested according to the proven scientific method. It will also give Government something real to do rather than argue about what they "think" the right thing is.

Spot on! Actually, how about All Bills must address One Issue and One Issue Only? No Omnibus garbage-truck collection of issues where one or two key issues make or break the deal. Every issue must be evaluated and voted on, but on its own merits/

Oh, and please include sunset features AND concrete 'measurables' to determine if the Bill has, in fact resulted in the achievement of its intended goals. No progress, let alone success milestones in year 1, 2, 5, 10, whatever... and the bill expires, the program dies and the agency is shut down.

Yes, and as I regularly interject, that's the danger in a Balanced Budget Amendment. Without the extra constraints, all a BBA means is that taxes will be raised to fund any and all programs the moochers desire!

You got it!

Hell, Mama, at first I thought you meant that for Elected Officials!... :)))))))

Philosophically I agree with you, Jan. However, DOMA was tested and deemed Constitutional by the Supremes. The President and his minion Mr. Holder disagreed, so the law, for all intents and purposes, has been vacated.
Another example: The Commerce Clause was tugged and stretched to cover the ACA (God knows how), the Supremes allowed it to stand as a tax, Mssrs Obama and Holder decreed that it is NOT a tax and ACA is the law of the land and will not be going away.

I have said this before, but I think that before I go messing with the Constitution (which does need some messing with, but carefully, very carefully) I would try to enforce it. So my 'one thing' would be to enact an amendment that declared null and void any law, regulation, or act that had not been affirmatively ruled was 'Constitutional'. (This eliminates 90% of the laws of the land, including most of the EPA, gun regs, zoning, etc). All laws (regulations, dictates, etc) must be affirmatively judged as Constitutional before they are considered to be legal.

Jan

Put me in charge for 6 months. No salary, no benefits, no complaints about tactics.
Standard elections according to the law at the end of my "term" - with NO ONE now in office eligible to run.

A draft is just more statism, though, right? I understand what your thoughts probably are. But, a draft would allow 1000 Afghanistan boondoggles. No offense.

That's very good Salty Dog.

Repeal the 17th amendment. That restores some semblance of state power to the system.

I didn't know that!

What's the story there? (I didn't know that Mr. Obama was that old! LOL)

I agree. I think, if possible, that states should nullify by executive (dis)order. Mandate that all fed taxes go through state capitals. Then send in funds for what you support, with the understanding that you will have all fed funds that would come back to you revoked. And if citizens don't send in to (in my case) Raleigh, NC then their state refund checks get forfeited.

I'm thinking of leaving $5K in my will to Hillsdale. They take $0.00!!! in Fed monies.

I'd go with FAIR TAX ACT. Lets people pay taxes on what they want to buy and is not at all as regressive as our letting the IRS pick winners and losers or intimidate the citizenry. *** Look, I buy physical silver, no gold yet, soon. I don't think the gold standard is necessarily valid. I've done some rudimentary research to back that up. Not an expert. http://www.moneycrashers.com/fair-tax-ac...