Come on. If no one had tax exempt status then no one could use this as a tool. Are you going to offer a real reason or not?

Obama may have won at least one, maybe two elections as a result of IRS people letting only one side's political committees have tax-exempt status. I think that's enough of a connection to matter.

Seem like two separate ideas to me, and I do not see the connection between tax exempt status and freedom of speech. I have freedom of speech, but get taxed extensively.

The idea of exempting food, clothing, shelter, and medicine is to tax only disposable income. The poor would go untouched, without any need for them to register for and receive an annual government payment as is included in the "Fair Tax" proposal.

Because we need them for some of our First Amendment rights to matter. And "the power to tax is the power to destroy."

Why are non-profits good, religions included?

I think this would be simpler:

Eliminate the income tax entirely, both for individuals and companies. Eliminate all payroll taxes too.
I'm tempted to say replace them with nothing (we had more than enough government in 1911).
If we do replace it, institute a simple sales tax, limited in the constitution to 10%, with all food, clothing, shelter, and medicine being exempt.

Balanced budget amendment -- with teeth. (Meaning outlays are limited to last year's actual receipts, not some estimate of this year's receipts.)

Eliminating non-profit status is a bad idea. Indeed, all political speech ought to be tax-exempt for the same reason religions are tax-exempt.

Oppenheimer arranged for the atomic bomb secret to be leaked to the Soviets. Pournelle has written about this.

I promise not to:-)

Just don't start singing....

Paging Juan and Eva Peron :- ))

Yep. pretty accurate, I think. Especially the China part, as there is signifigant evidence they were all over the world at one point, the Emperors 1,000 ship fleet seemed to touch every shore. Lots of artifacts now being discovered in the Northwest, indicating they were trading with the Natives back to the 1100-1500 period. I am waiting for them to uncover a Native American artifact in China and prove it. But that is indeed the problem with any "cuts". The aerospace industry went through all that in the 70's and 80's. And when the lobbyists come calling, magic funding appears for whatever group was being chopped and it gets renamed, reordered and beefed up.

Congress can't legislate Federal hiring practices easily, as both Democrat and Republican representatives have discovered. Unions and lobbyists unashamedly threaten withdrawal of support, and activist media set out to destroy a politician who attempts to make "radical" changes.

Dan Goldin, who had popular support from both Democrat and Republican sides of Congress as the new NASA administrator who could put new spirit back into that agency, failed. His failure wasn't because of lack of ability or leadership, but because that agency had built unassailable support for the numerous fiefdoms (Houston, Huntsville, e.g.) in the NASA kingdom. All the entrenched mandarins had to do was scream to local media about how Goldin was going to destroy jobs in their area, and the Representatives and Senators of those municipalities/states put up barriers to all of his proposals to streamline the agency.

Historians tell us that one of the biggest mistakes China made was to cease its world exploration in the 15th century and withdraw, isolating itself at a point when it was a superpower. The mandarins, China's bureaucratic administrative "shadow kingdom", caused that grievous error, and the U.S. is becoming a victim of that same kind of creation.

Just to add to the discussion:

https://www.atr.org/irs-midnight-unit...

The "Media Management Midnight Unit"? Really? This just gets funnier and funnier, if it wasn't our government, I would swear it was a B movie script...

Yes, indeed. Protected by the other criminal organization: Justice.

I agree with your statement, My experience is they do not care, I had a specific case of fraud and perjury in a bankruptcy falsely filed to protect themselves from a judgement, and the Federal prosecutor said "it's only one creditor" (because they didn't bother to list the other 10 or so), and when I asked him "since you have defined small perjury, what constitutes big perjury, where you will enforce the law?" he hung up. Your tax-dollars at work, selective enforcement of laws that are basically useless for honest ruling of a society and are only implemented for political gain. That is just one small example. The IRS thing shows how a whole segment can be hijacked for the looters use when desired. Bad for us, good for them.

Indeed, however, I think there are similar examples going back much further. Roosevelt had his own methods of dealing with those he found impeding his programs, his VP of 1944 was tossed aside for Truman. Madison and Jefferson both had their own battles with opposite philosophy's and the New England states actually supported the British, or at least tried to strangle the union financially to support their own aims. The growth of the bureaucracy starting in the 30's led to the whole "government worker" caste that seems to now be able to switch hats a a moments notice and apply the leaderships retribution on the losers. In all cases, it is force inflicted on individuals by a government entity.

Yes, they just line up like iron filings in a magnetic field -- peons!!! -- j
.

Amazing that an organization can change it's stripes based on which way the stink blows. Also it illustrates a basic lack of honor and ethics, which I realize is not a job requirement in any government.

DOE governed us, at the manhattan project site y12, and when
the election was over, the whole organization rapidly aligned
with the new regime. . change out the head few and the rest conform.
that's my experience. . political appointees at the top control it all. -- j
.

But still, it is a wonder they would go after a specific group, unless somehow the Dems changed out the management, which is amazing given the fact a bureaucrat lifespan is about a million years...

On par with the best the Third World has to offer, and no regrets either.