Keith Kube for Legislature

Editorial #145 “Solving the Tax Problem” aired February 13, 2020

Editorial #145 Solving the Tax Problem

Since we are all going to die, the only other thing in life left is to do something about taxes. LR 300, call the Consumption Tax, is a good start at solving that problem.

For any problem to be solved, it must be perfectly described if there is any hope of finding a solution. We don’t go to the shooting range with a blind fold on, nor should we try to solve this property tax problem without seeing the target.
We need $9 Billion to come from some place. Is the number the problem or does the tax payers feel they are not getting a good return on the money they pay?

The government must use our tax dollars properly by doing only that which reduces future expenses and not to buy votes from special interests. This problem would be considerably easier to solve if the tax payers felt they were getting their money’s worth.

When school administrators are paid more than the governor and the quality of the product is falling, that does not engender confidence in the way our money is spent. The cost of education is over $16,000/year/student with no indication of it going down, is only one example.

To tax property means that the owner never really owns the land, actually only renting it from the government. It is unfair to tax the net worth of farmers and ranchers if everyone’s net worth, including stocks, bonds and pensions, are not taxed as well.

Income tax is a tax on success and to carve exceptions makes it more unfair by rewarding low productivity. It is un-American for success to be penalized.

A tax on business is a shell game and a fraud, playing into a socialist mind set. Any tax on business is simply a cost of business and is always passed through and paid for by the consumer.

Taxes are becoming a game of “us vs them”. We are supposed to be a government: “of the people, by the people for the people”. Instead, taxpayers are looking at government as the adversary and suspicious of how it spends. The spectrum of a thousand legislative bills each session seems to be looking for problems we didn’t know we had, rather than looking for ways to reduce spending.

The tax on consumption is the most fair as it is the foundation of a capitalistic free market economy and the most progressive.

The bottom line is we must generate $9 billion from about 2 million Nebraskans. With a consumption tax, the regressive nature of tax is eliminated. An appropriate percentage on the estimated $115 Billion of purchases would solve the problem and eliminate all the other irritating, unfair taxes. It would cause our state’s economy to explode and be the envy of all the other states, because we would have no income or property tax.

The only job we have is to make the world a better place. Fixing our tax system with LR300 is a very good start.
This is Keith Kube wishing you the best in making the world a better place.

Bumper: Keith has a regular commentary on WJAG 780 radio at 7:40 on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Check his website www.keithkube.com for past editorials.

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