Louie! No! Stop! You’re Nakkid and Dumb!
In a dizzying economic theory that rivals the greatest minds in this country, Louie Gohmert has figured it all out, dammit. He has put some thought into this.
We need a flat tax so that “everyone has some skin in the game.” (Oddly, the term “skin in the game” was invented by Warren Buffett, a liberal. ) Gohmert thinks that a flat tax of 10% is the perfect answer.
Gohmert said that he had “wrestled” with what to do with people who were so poor that they barely got by on government assistance.
“What if you’re so poor the only money you have is what the government gives you? And I’ve wondered, you know, isn’t that wasted money, you give it and you take it back? No, it gives you an investment in the country. And we need that.”
Okay, so if you’re “barely getting by” what do you do with 10% less than barely?
Y’all, really. He said that. Out loud.
Here’s a man who, according to his own financial filings, has a net worth of minus $150,000 and he is going to have the answer to our economic problems. I think he’s $150,000 in debt because he can’t do arithmetic.
I think he needs to shut the hell up and get by on less instead of leaving this set to his children. Wait, where did I hear that before?
Thanks to Irene and Kathleen for the heads up.
I believe the proper spelling in this case is nekkid.
(Naked means you have no clothes on, nekkid means you have no clothes on and you’re up to no good.)
1Loopy Louie, that huge gohmert hole in your head keeps expanding. Seriously, old scout, there is a difference between a decimal point and a doorknob. Learn it please, before your next venture into the great beyond stupid orbit.
Dude, flat tax is sort of like flat Earth. Whereas a progressive rate worked just fine, until the GOP gummed up the works with loopholes loopier than you and accountants learned the art of shoveling money into offshore accounts.
Unlike you, Louie, the poor pay more than their fair share of taxes. In strict math, 10% of nothing is still nothing, until you factor in taxes on food, clothing, road tolls, gas taxes and a myriad of other taxes. I don’t expect you to do the math, Louie, just GET this: proportionally as a percentage of income the poor pay more taxes than the rest of us.
So, Lou, whether you are Xian or a le chien, la chienne, it matters not, because as Juanita Jean so aptly observed you are Dumb!
(will leave that Nakkid, nekkid, Naked debate to the ladies) Honest gals, there is a reason you change more diapers than us guys. Really, we are not lazy and heartless, we’re just no match for you in the intestinal fortitude department. The “N” word and Louie, I might need a drink tonight.
2I think Louie meant to say “everyone gets skinned in the game.” Poor Louie, bless his heart (that’s southern).
3This is what happens when you elect stupid to congress. Too stupid to know what you don’t know and stupid enough to open up your mouth and let the whole world know.
4Gawd save us from stupid.
Kool idea, maryelle! Let’s make stupidity a felony, then we can impeach and recall the Congress varmints. Add a breathalyzer and piddle bottles at the chamber doors, we can rid ourselves of a few more gohmerts for legislating under the influence.
5I wouldn’t mind a flat tax as long as we did a few things:
1) Exempt the first $35,000 or so of everyone’s income from taxation. If you make less than $35,000 you pay no tax.
2) We started treating all types of income equally. Capital gains would be treated just the same as salaries. No more taxing someone else’s wealth at half the rate of my labor.
3) No deductions for any reason.
4) Anything over $1 million per year would be taxed double.
That way, with Louie’s 10%, if you made $35,000 your rate would be zero.
If you made $100,000, your effective rate would be 6.5% (nothing on the first $35,000, and 10% of the next $65,000).
If you made $2 million you’d pay almost $300,000, or very close to $15%.
It retains progressivity, it’s simple, and it allows people to pay for life’s necessities before they ever have to pay a penny in income tax.
6sean hannaty claims crazy louie is a good friend of his
7John in Lafayette, if I were smart about money I prolly would like your ideas. They sound sensible. My husband is the tax guru around here.
8John in Lafayette–I’ve been thinking of something along those lines for a long time. Only I think we need to tie the values into the cost of living; for example, you pay zip if your income is twice the defined “cost of living,” then 10% up to some other multiplier (say, 100 times), when it would double. That way, if cost of living rises or falls, so would the lines for more (or less) tax.
I’m thinking the number I’ve heard lately for “cost of living” is something like 22K, so no tax to 44k, double tax after 220k. To get closer to what you’re suggesting, maybe we should start at 1.5 times the cost of living…
General idea is the same, though.
9Wonder if anyone remembers the old Lum and Abner movies feating stereotypes. Neither one had the brain the size of a split pea between them and whenever they tried to do even the simplest math . . . well, you know — like Louie-louie. Keep wondering who wrote his script.
10It saddens me to know that Louie Lou Eye has reproduced.
11I think maybe Louie’s been fooling us…because I’ll bet the way he sees it, if he’s $150,000 in debt, then the 10% tax thing would mean the government should pay him $15,000 on top of his salary.
The problem is that aside from using the IRS as a police force, the government’s never figured out how to do what the utilities do. If you don’t pay your utility bill, they cut off the power. You have a cold, dark house. If the government could cut off all government services to individuals and corporations that don’t pay their taxes…no use of the roads, no use of the public airports, no use of the mails, no use of courthouses, no use of any tax-paid service…like, oh, police and fire and so on…no business loans, no tax exemptions (which they shouldn’t get anyway, but…) no government contracts, can’t take their kids to the park, their kids can’t use the library…oh, and they can’t buy foods that have been government inspected, and they are blocked from access to National Weather Service broadcasts…
Maybe they’d begin to realize what they get from their government that, apparently, they’ve never appreciated.
The corporations wouldn’t (they aren’t REALLY people) but their officers might.
12To abuse his metaphor, he puts skin in the game but he insists that others put in different organs. Poor people have to put their empty stomachs in the game. Women have to put their uterus in the game. Others have to wager their home, their health, and their security. If all he has to gamble is a little skin, he can’t even sit at the big boy table.
13Um, this MY opinion:
Dumb means to be unable to speak, and somehow that doesn’t seem to fit the congressman. Might we better use idiotic or brainless or witless or even foolish…
14SomedayGirl, you’re right about the spelling and meaning of “nekkid.” As in, “He was buck nekkid when the cops caught up with him.”
15Dean Vernon Wormer, in the Gospel of Animal House has the word on Louie Lou eye: “Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.”
16Flat taxes are horrible ideas. Flat taxes are nothing but a tax cut to the rich paid for a tax increase on the middle class
17Kyle: The way they’re presented by people in Congress (like crazy Louie) they are, I agree. But that’s because they start taxing people from dollar one, and they don’t do anything to get rid of the tax breaks the rich have written themselves into law (the biggest being the one that taxes their capital at half the rate of everyone else’s labor).
But there’s no reason why anyone making $10,000 a year should be paying taxes, and there’s no reason why a capital gain shouldn’t be taxed at the same rate as a salary.
So if we exempt people from paying taxes until they’ve first made enough to pay for life’s necessities, and if we do away with deductions, a flat tax wouldn’t punish the poor and middle class, and it would retain progressivity. Especially if we double the flat rate above a certain income level.
And it sure would be a heck of a lot easier. If the flat tax was 15%, the threshold was $45,000, there were no deductions, and you made $50,000 last year your tax bill would be $750 (15% of the amount above $45,000), an effective rate of 1.5%.
No need to save receipts No need to hire an accountant. No need to agonize over a myriad of forms for hours on end.
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