Taxation!

Doug for President would prefer to run the government without taxation, but that seems a little impractical. It would take too much government wind-down too fast to get it done. Is it possible? Absolutely! Why? Because America's abundant natural resources, the ones on public lands, the ones under the sea in our waters, our rivers, these belong to all of the people. As do the airwaves through which your wireless phones, TV signals, and satellite signals come through. It might be possible to run a minimal function (defense, little else) government on the royalties and proceeds of selling/accessing these resources. You could then utilize only federal fuel taxes to pay for national highways (which is a reasonable plan. Fuel taxes charge people to use roads, then you use the fuel taxes to pay for roads. Not unreasonable. The people that drive the most pay the most.)

However, if you want a revenue neutral idea that would work, look here: http://www.fairtax.org. It replaces all federal payroll/income/capital gains taxes with a consumption based sales tax. True, the consumption tax number looks insane! But think about how much of a chunk you pay out every week in income taxes, plus your company pays them. Then, the companies you buy stuff from are paying taxes for their profits, which are priced into your items. If you eliminate all of these taxes, and charge end-users a consumption tax, this could be done, apparently, revenue-neutral for the US.

What? That's right, the government could get the same funding they get now. And this would close the loopholes that can be used to game the system. The plan would allow people living at poverty level and below to get a monthly rebate (or prebate, paid ahead of time) of their consumption tax, thus allowing the working poor a tax break that allows the opportunity to hopefully get above that line. And there would be no loopholes for anyone to exploit. Spend $50,000? You paid taxes on it. Spend $2 Million? Pay taxes on it. Save your money, thus preparing for your kid's education, health care problems, retirement? No tax on that money! Health care? Doctors are not going to pay taxes on the income in their practice, and you would have no tax on medical services, so there's a chance for some savings.

The Doug for President Campaign, even if it becomes the Doug for Dogcatcher/Coroner Campaign, heartily endorses the FairTax plan.

Even though it would actually mean higher taxes for Doug. Because Doug would be losing some of the loopholes he uses to reduce his tax bill.

Doug does ask, what does the FairTax plan do with people who are registered objectors to the Social Security System? Would that program simply fade away?