Why I can't vote for the Consitutution Party.

[Patrick Banks]

The election is over, and I had some people, who are very close to me, question why I did not vote for the Constitution Party candidate. Here is why, other than it would have been like voting for the D, which, in a close vote, would have given the RINO a defeat to the Marxist:

The Constitution Party will lose me here every time:

2) It can impose tariffs. Again in today’s world, if a pair of shoes cost $10 to make overseas and $40 to make in the U.S., the federal government is supposed to collect a $30 tax. This provides tax revenue and protects American jobs (big business won’t like this!).

Why should anyone have to pay $40 for a $10 pair of shoes? Tariffs aren't going to get me - or anyone else in a service industry - a better job; they'd just raise prices and lower my standard of living because I could only afford less stuff. When you impose tariffs on certain items like shoes, you raise prices on everybody to benefit the few shoe manufacturing jobs (and big businesses) that would be created. Rich liberals hate Wal-Mart; people of every political flavor shop at Wal-Mart, because it INCREASES their standard of living - if you can get two pairs of shoes for your children, and have enough left over for two more shirts, or videos, or whatever - your standard of living is better, DUH!

Big businesses that can start manufacturing shoes at prices high enough (arbitrarily set by the gov't) to make a profit in the US would LOVE this. So would the unions. Then, after the unions take over, manufacturing prices skyrocket, and the big business and union lobbyists go in cahoots to the gummint to get an even bigger tariff "or these poor people will be out of a job and we'll have to send those jobs overseas." My price just went up again. The gummint arbitrarily decides what the tariff should be, based on who has the best lobbyist or the biggest political clout. The govenment remains too big, and has even more arbritrary power. Shampoo. Rinse. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

The tariff was one of the MAIN reasons the South seceded. The arbitrary tax helped Northern manufacturers and hammered the agrarian South. The South was paying $40 (or whatever) for $10 worth of goods. I learned that in the Politically Incorrect Guide to US History. I recommend it to everyone.

Oh yeah, and we create trade wars to boot. See Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930.

The direct tax sounds intriguing, but the Pre-Constitution Confederacy had ONE HELL of a time collecting from individual states that voted NO on their portion of the direct tax. It's one of the main reasons we had a Constitutional Convention in the first place, and is reflected in the language of the Constitution.

Too many people accept the paradigm that free trade is the problem. I don't accept that paradigm. When my family gets to buy something for less than it would cost without free trade, that's good for my family. The problem is that our government makes it so expensive to operate a business -- through taxes regulations, etc. -- that they drive manufacturers overseas. Then they blame the manufacturers for going overseas! Read more articles or books from Frederic Bastiat, Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, the Von Mises Institute, etc.

I agree with the CP on the VAT tax. It is the most insidious tax of all. Big Gummint increases taxes, prices go up, and Big Gummint gets to blame Big Business for higher prices. I think there should be little or no business taxes. They are just a cost of doing business that increases prices (which is why Big Gummint loves them so much - class warfare). At the very least, we need a 10% maximum corporate tax rate. Even better: 0%, like China. (Why would a business cheat on taxes if the tax rate was 0%? DUH-uh!

I prefer a version of the FairTax, which you can find elsewhere.

Yours,

Patrick Banks

[Patrick Banks]

I almost forgot about "War Between the States." One of the major factors for the war was over TARIFFS! The Agrarian South wanted free trade. They didn't want to pay a premium for imports. The manufacturers and importers in the North were for the tariff.

"As some Northern newspapers admitted[,] foreign commerce would be massively diverted from Northern ports to Southern ones, as merchants sought out the South's low-tariff or free-trade regime. As soon as the Confederate Congress adopted a low-tariff system, [Ohio Congressman Clement] Vallandigham said, "Trade and commerce . . . began to look to the South. The city of New York . . . began to clamor now, loudly, for a repeal of the pernicious and ruinous tariff. Threatened thus with the loss of both political power and wealth . . . New England and Pennsylvania . . . demanded, coercion and civil war. . . . The subjugation of the South, and the closing up of her ports--first, by force, in war, and afterward, by tariff laws, in peace, was deliberately resolved upon by the East." [Woods, Thomas E., Jr, PhD, 2004. "The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History." pp 68-9. Regenery. Washington, DC].

[Timothy J Banks]

Bravo Bro! You've done your homework!