RAHN: No tax increase needed

The author is omitting a crucial part of the equation: SS/FICA surplusses that have been hiding much larger annual deficits. Without the paper-IOUs Uncle Sam has been issuing for dipping into seemlessly unending FICA surplus, the average annual and overall federal deficit would be much, much larger as a percentage and in absolute terms. Now, we are facing a negative "two-man play", to borrow dodgeball terminology. Not only will we loose the free, no-interest financing afforded by FICA surpluses, but will have to pay out more to maintain SS and other entitlement programs as the demographics shift soon towards a decidedly more aged population overall. The hundreds of billions of dollars that used to buffer deficits will not only exposed as additional deficit, but many more billions will be added on TOP of THAT to make for the rise in the ranks of the elderly and retired. Don't count on cutting back on grandma and grandpa's entitlement benefits; with an aging population comes more aging voters, who have plenty of retirement time to fight for their keep. ...nothing to say of the declining value of the dollar and rising energy export costs... of course. Let's assume the pie in the sky remedies Obama and McCain propose will have immediate impact and keep energy costs under control.. even though there is no objective basis to give them that much slack; I just feel "generous", like a Fed gone wild passing out Monopoly money to grease the financial markets. I like to see the author make the numbers look so good (so "average") under such circumstances, if he can. He should be prepared to; day of reckoning is almost here...

Bold enough to take on the IRS? This is one of the favorite election year fantasies. The other is elimination of the Electoral College. Don't hold your breath for either. Still, Commissioner Gordon likes the idea of flattening the Internal Revenue Code.

"If Congress were to act responsibly (yes, an oxymoron), it would hold down the growth of spending, as was done in the late 1980s and late 1990s, and eliminate those government programs that do not meet a reasonable cost-benefit test." This is the heart of the article and any successful free market investment model. A real business optimizes the cost to production model. We have constitutionally delineated costs that are outlooked every year through budgets. All other costs (including earmarks) should have a cost benefit analysis conducted by an independent strictly confidential firm every year and those costs rated for investment or continuance. Of course this will never happen because we cannot get past the politics, e.g. the biofuels bill had about 30 seconds real analysis and month's of election year political analysis. You don't significantly shift the production of an energy market to a food production market without analyzing the production as well as economic impact. Both the Congress and the President did. You would have thought they would have learned something about complexity with immigration debacle.

Easiest way to cure Medicare/Social Security/Entitlement Disaster: eliminate income taxes on retirees. Anyone age 60 and older who wants to work should pay zero income taxes (up to some reasonable limit like $60K). It would encourage millions of seniors to work and remain productive members of society rather than retiring and draining hundreds of billions through Medicare, which will soon be bankrupt anyway.

Excellent ideas! I would like to see the "Big Three" entitlements privatized. Too bad I will be too old to benefit from this, and will have to be content with the lousy 1% return my social security taxes will provide after a lifetime of work, should I be lucky to live long enough. Unfortunately I don't see any political figure on the horizon with the guts to take on this formidable task.

Mike Huckabee said on numerous occasions that penalizing productivity is not the answer. We need to do something to bring manufacturing back to America and the Fair Tax could help. The economy is hurting because of the loss of good paying jobs. The recent AP article "America's Fastest-Dying Cities" lists several cities that were former booming manufacturing communities. http://promo.realestate.yahoo.com/americas-fastest-dying-cities.html

hi, I have some simple questions about the federal tax. I work as parttime lifeguard. Recently, I just found out that the federal tax showed on my payroll have increased from 6.8% in June to 10.4% in August. As a result, my net pay have decreased about 5-7% since June. I am very confused and my boss told me thats the way it is. Can anyone tell me what is happening? Thank you very much.