Don't Start the Revolution Without Me! - Jesse Ventura [75]
With a national sales tax, the federal government brings in the money it needs by taxing the goods and services we buy. Food and clothing, the basic necessities, would be exempt. Only our optional purchases would be collected on. We decide how much tax we’ll pay by regulating our own level of consumption. You could be a multimillionaire but live in a studio apartment and drive a beat-up Volkswagen, and keep most of your money. But if you live in a penthouse and drive a Mercedes and own a yacht, you pay in accordance with your lifestyle. Wealth isn’t based on what you earn, but on what you spend.
One objection I’ve heard raised to a national sales tax is that our free market economy would be adversely affected. But I think the opposite is true. This would make the government inherently dependent upon the economy. If we’re not out there spending, they’re not making any money. With the system we have now, the government doesn’t feel pain. If there’s a recession, the government still gets your money first. You get to keep what they allow. Start taxing what’s sold on a day-to-day basis, the government gets a piece of the action—but if the economy goes sour, so do they.
Some people also worry that a national sales tax would create a big black market, because a lot of the economy would go underground to avoid paying it. Again, I don’t see that happening. Right now, people making incomes off illegal businesses like gambling or drugs don’t pay income tax on them. But everybody buys things and, when they do, they’re paying taxes. The same would be true for foreign visitors, whose purchases would all be a bigger boon to our economy.
Since our gross national product is in the trillions, I think that should be enough to run our government. If you shifted the entire economy to being based upon purchasing, I’ve seen studies that the sales tax could be as low as twelve percent. Not thirty percent, like most people are paying in income taxes today. And the IRS could shift from monitoring us to keeping tabs on our government. If the Pentagon is wasting money by buying $200 toilet seats, they get harassed, instead of private citizens.
Of course, I realize that we’d need a constitutional amendment to make this kind of change. But that’s how income tax happened, in 1913. Something our forefathers never envisioned—that the government would receive the fruits of your labor before you would.
After September 11, 2001, the entire country went into an economic slump. In Minnesota, our huge surplus turned into a projected $2 billion deficit through 2003. In order to balance the budget, I had to call for something I swore I never would: raising people’s taxes. I came out for increasing taxes on cigarettes, and even newspapers and magazines. I wanted to extend the sales tax to legal services and auto repairs.
The two parties, however, chose to ignore me and set out to fix the deficit their way—which was nothing but smoke and mirrors, and an effort to do it without raising any taxes. We ended up in a stalemate in 2002. I called the legislature’s approach “a classic Alfred E. Neuman ‘What, me worry?’ scenario.” Their plans reminded me of the homeowner who makes house repairs with cheap materials that last just long enough for them to sell it to someone else. Then the new owner comes along and gets stuck with all the bills when the place falls apart. I didn’t want our citizens suckered into this kind of cheap trick.
The legislature set out to isolate me and go their own way. So, I gave it back to them in kind. When they came to deliver the budget bill to my office, nobody answered the door. So, the two party honchos came out to my ranch at ten o’clock that night, bringing the TV cameras along. It was a big charade, trying to make it look like they were staying up late doing their job, while I was avoiding them. One of my state troopers guarding the ranch refused to say whether I was there. (I was inside watching a Timberwolves game.) The next morning,