April Fools Day
April Fools Day. Today is April first. As I pondered the origins of this normally harmless day of foolishness, I got to thinking about another day that will soon be on the horizon, April 15th!
As the great day-of-pay approaches, I have been asking the people that I know why we have federal income tax? Almost without exception they have answered: "to pay the expenses of government". Of course, nothing could be farther from the truth. Income tax has nothing to do with paying the expenses of the government.
If I were to ask you when the country was created, most of you would give me a date somewhere around the fourth of July in 1776, so let's use that date for our point of reference. When the country began in 1776 there was no income tax. In fact, there was no machinery for collecting any such tax; even after the ratification of the Constitution in 1787-88 there was still no provision for any tax on the people's income. Except for the "temporary" income tax illegally administered during Lincoln's War to destroy the Union, there was no income tax in this country until 1913, when the Supreme Court upheld its validity in Brushaber, 240 US 1, and the passage of the 16th Amendment in "the dark of the night". And even then, it did not affect more than a few people. Until 1942, only 3% of the people paid income tax. Up to then, most people had heard of it, but they didn't pay it, and had never seen the form. The reason for this was that it did not apply to them. For the record, in 1941 the Federal government collected more money from alcohol, and tobacco than it did in income taxes. Remember the "moonshine", and "infernal revenooers" of the old comic "Snuffy Smith"?
The income tax as we know it today did not find its way into the pocketbooks of the people until 1942, and then only because we were in the middle of the war that FDR "arranged" to end the Depression. Even then, the money grabbers could only get away with it by calling it the "Victory Tax" which was to be repealed at the end of the war.
Question for you: Name for me one year between 1776 and 1942 when the nation could not function without income tax?; can't find one?; Neither could I, amazing isn't it? In all of those years, through all of the wars that we fought, and won, including WWII which we won by American might, and willpower more than any "Victory Tax", we were able to accomplish all of this without an income tax.
So, if we didn't have an income tax for all of this time, where did the federal government get the money to pay for itself? Why alcohol, and tobacco taxes, of course! These taxes, along with the tariffs that used to be in place that made foreigners pay for the privilege of selling their products here, were enough to pay for the few powers that the Constitution grants to the Federal government. As a matter of fact, there was so much money pouring into the Treasury that Congress didn't know what to do with it.
So, if we don't need an income tax to pay for the federal government, why do we have one? In 1942, a man named Meyer Jacobstein, of the Brookings Institute, testified to a Senate subcomittee of the "need to mop up the excess purchasing power of the nation" because of its effect on the price situation in the country. In other words, the people are producing too much wealth, which, with the lack of a metal-based currency equates to hyper-inflation, and the destruction of the dollar, so we have to remove this "excess" in order to preserve the economy. When there was "real" money(gold&silver) behind our currency, the government had to deposit the appropriate amount of "metal" in the Treasury to support the paper whenever any of it was printed in the same way you put money into your account before you write a check. This is the reason that you find the words "pay to the bearer on demand one silver dollar" on the old silver certificate money that used to be in circulation. Even the early Federal Reserve notes said that.The bank would pay to the bearer on demand the amount of the bill in "silver" if requested. The only difference between a personal check, and government currency is that the check names the person to be paid, and the currency does not.
So, this being the case, why doesn't the government just print the money that it needs, bigger numbers, on bigger pieces of paper? The answer brings us back to Meyer Jacobstein's testimony to the subcomitee which is "that doing so would bring on hyper-inflation" send the prices of goods to the moon, and destroy the purchasing power of the dollar. That is what happened to the Weimar Republic in post-WWI Germany, and is now happening in the African nation of Zimbabwe. It is also happening right here in the good ole USA, only it has taken so long for it to manifest because of the "shadow government" running the unbacked printing through the un-Federal Reserve System, which is , of course, un-Constitutional. This system, which has been brilliantly conveived to confuse, and conceal its intention, is being implemented by the "New World Order"(Novus Ordo Seclorum) to achieve its envisioned world government.
So, basically what we have here is the redistribution of the wealth of the people which has been ongoing since 1942. This is the "change" that Comrade Obama is talking about. It is also communism on a world level. So too is the subsidizing, and penalizing of various industries by the government which is to be seen most lately in the alleged take over of Ford Motors, which would have old Henry rolling over in his grave. The real issue here is controlling the purchasing power of the dollar. If the people have too much of it, the prices will rise. Simply put, the dollars taken by government cannot be spent by the people, and thereby cannot be used to acquire the things that are for sale. This is what Meyer Jacobstein meant by "mopping up purchasing power".
Thus, the true purpose of the income tax is to inhibit the inflationary effect of out of control government spending. The income tax allows our elitist rulers to "live off the fat of the land" by transferring the power of purchase from the people to the government, which has absolutely nothing to do with paying for the cost of government.
So, now that I got that off my chest and into your reservoirs of knowledge, maybe its time to re-think just which day of April is really "April Fools Day". The Revolution must be televised.
As the great day-of-pay approaches, I have been asking the people that I know why we have federal income tax? Almost without exception they have answered: "to pay the expenses of government". Of course, nothing could be farther from the truth. Income tax has nothing to do with paying the expenses of the government.
If I were to ask you when the country was created, most of you would give me a date somewhere around the fourth of July in 1776, so let's use that date for our point of reference. When the country began in 1776 there was no income tax. In fact, there was no machinery for collecting any such tax; even after the ratification of the Constitution in 1787-88 there was still no provision for any tax on the people's income. Except for the "temporary" income tax illegally administered during Lincoln's War to destroy the Union, there was no income tax in this country until 1913, when the Supreme Court upheld its validity in Brushaber, 240 US 1, and the passage of the 16th Amendment in "the dark of the night". And even then, it did not affect more than a few people. Until 1942, only 3% of the people paid income tax. Up to then, most people had heard of it, but they didn't pay it, and had never seen the form. The reason for this was that it did not apply to them. For the record, in 1941 the Federal government collected more money from alcohol, and tobacco than it did in income taxes. Remember the "moonshine", and "infernal revenooers" of the old comic "Snuffy Smith"?
The income tax as we know it today did not find its way into the pocketbooks of the people until 1942, and then only because we were in the middle of the war that FDR "arranged" to end the Depression. Even then, the money grabbers could only get away with it by calling it the "Victory Tax" which was to be repealed at the end of the war.
Question for you: Name for me one year between 1776 and 1942 when the nation could not function without income tax?; can't find one?; Neither could I, amazing isn't it? In all of those years, through all of the wars that we fought, and won, including WWII which we won by American might, and willpower more than any "Victory Tax", we were able to accomplish all of this without an income tax.
So, if we didn't have an income tax for all of this time, where did the federal government get the money to pay for itself? Why alcohol, and tobacco taxes, of course! These taxes, along with the tariffs that used to be in place that made foreigners pay for the privilege of selling their products here, were enough to pay for the few powers that the Constitution grants to the Federal government. As a matter of fact, there was so much money pouring into the Treasury that Congress didn't know what to do with it.
So, if we don't need an income tax to pay for the federal government, why do we have one? In 1942, a man named Meyer Jacobstein, of the Brookings Institute, testified to a Senate subcomittee of the "need to mop up the excess purchasing power of the nation" because of its effect on the price situation in the country. In other words, the people are producing too much wealth, which, with the lack of a metal-based currency equates to hyper-inflation, and the destruction of the dollar, so we have to remove this "excess" in order to preserve the economy. When there was "real" money(gold&silver) behind our currency, the government had to deposit the appropriate amount of "metal" in the Treasury to support the paper whenever any of it was printed in the same way you put money into your account before you write a check. This is the reason that you find the words "pay to the bearer on demand one silver dollar" on the old silver certificate money that used to be in circulation. Even the early Federal Reserve notes said that.The bank would pay to the bearer on demand the amount of the bill in "silver" if requested. The only difference between a personal check, and government currency is that the check names the person to be paid, and the currency does not.
So, this being the case, why doesn't the government just print the money that it needs, bigger numbers, on bigger pieces of paper? The answer brings us back to Meyer Jacobstein's testimony to the subcomitee which is "that doing so would bring on hyper-inflation" send the prices of goods to the moon, and destroy the purchasing power of the dollar. That is what happened to the Weimar Republic in post-WWI Germany, and is now happening in the African nation of Zimbabwe. It is also happening right here in the good ole USA, only it has taken so long for it to manifest because of the "shadow government" running the unbacked printing through the un-Federal Reserve System, which is , of course, un-Constitutional. This system, which has been brilliantly conveived to confuse, and conceal its intention, is being implemented by the "New World Order"(Novus Ordo Seclorum) to achieve its envisioned world government.
So, basically what we have here is the redistribution of the wealth of the people which has been ongoing since 1942. This is the "change" that Comrade Obama is talking about. It is also communism on a world level. So too is the subsidizing, and penalizing of various industries by the government which is to be seen most lately in the alleged take over of Ford Motors, which would have old Henry rolling over in his grave. The real issue here is controlling the purchasing power of the dollar. If the people have too much of it, the prices will rise. Simply put, the dollars taken by government cannot be spent by the people, and thereby cannot be used to acquire the things that are for sale. This is what Meyer Jacobstein meant by "mopping up purchasing power".
Thus, the true purpose of the income tax is to inhibit the inflationary effect of out of control government spending. The income tax allows our elitist rulers to "live off the fat of the land" by transferring the power of purchase from the people to the government, which has absolutely nothing to do with paying for the cost of government.
So, now that I got that off my chest and into your reservoirs of knowledge, maybe its time to re-think just which day of April is really "April Fools Day". The Revolution must be televised.
posted by theoldsage @ 9:23 AM
52 Comments
