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It has been
months now since the new healthcare reform bill was passed into law. As
is so typical, this massive piece of legislation was passed with a sense of
urgency so acute that leadership declared America could not afford to wait
until legislators, their staff and the general public had time to thoroughly
read the bill.
The truth comes
out eventually, however. Much like the recently discovered exemption
from Freedom of Information Act requirements for the SEC that was slipped
into the equally massive and “urgent” financial reform bill, we
are finally seeing what other insidiousness has been hiding in the fine print
of the healthcare reform bill. It seems that all provisions in this
poorly written and poorly conceived monstrosity need to be repealed as soon
as possible.
One such
disaster-waiting-to-happen is one of the revenue generating provisions used
to claim that the healthcare reform bill was “paid for”.
$17 billion in additional tax revenues is supposed to come from an onerous
new IRS reporting requirement that any taxpayer with business income who
spends over $600 in one year with one business will have to report those
expenditures to the IRS. Mind you, this is a cumulative total of $600
in transactions in one year. This will involve so much extra accounting
and paperwork that the IRS claims it will be unable to deal with it
effectively, and even the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants
(to whom it should be a boon) has come out against it! Apparently they
realize they will actually lose customers, especially small businesses, to
bankruptcy because of this!
Gold dealers are
especially alarmed by this provision, as most of their transactions easily
top $600. This represents a significant outlay of time and paperwork
and no additional revenue for businesses with which to hire people. Not
to mention this makes every business a de facto IRS agent, as if they
didn’t have enough to worry about already!
Of course, there
is a tremendous outcry against this. Several other legislators also see
how unreasonable this is and are trying to repeal it. However, this
would simply mean that $17 billion in healthcare funding will have to come
from somewhere else, and there are no good options. Taxes from some
other equally bad collection scheme? Borrowing and more debt?
Creating more money from thin air and adding to inflationary pressures?
The best answer,
of course, would be to repeal the entire health care law, along with all
other unconstitutional spending. But Congress is more likely to
continue the shell game to cover the fact that we are broke and can afford
none of this.
This whole idea
of “paying for” new programs is a political euphemism that
suggests that raising taxes is just as good as cutting spending since neither
one increases the national debt. Raising taxes and overwhelming small
businesses with paperwork and regulations still increases governmental burden
on our fragile economy. But this is our government’s idea of
“fiscal restraint” in action. Washington needs to stop
creating new programs and spending so much money. That would be
true fiscal restraint.
Ron
Paul
www.house.gov/paul
Congressman
Ron Paul of Texas enjoys a national reputation as the premier advocate for
liberty in politics today. Dr. Paul is the leading spokesman in Washington
for limited constitutional government, low taxes, free markets, and a return
to sound monetary policies based on commodity-backed currency. For more
information click on the Project Freedom website.
Published
with the authorization of Dr. Paul.
Copyright
Dr. Ron Paul
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