Serving the High Plains

View Point— Candidates may offer less tax, less government

Today, April 15, is the day everybody hates the IRS — everybody, that is, who has waited until today or just before to grudgingly send in their tax forms and checks.

Those who received refunds, however, have probably already spent them, many thinking they are bonus checks.

What those who send and those who receive income-tax checks share in common, however, is they all pay too much for government.

Too much of what many call “government services” are actually governmental limits on our own freedoms and too many of those services come with too many restrictive strings attached.

The good news is two of the declared candidates for U.S. president are calling for drastic reforms that change how Americans pay for the dubious privilege of being governed from Washington.

While the most recent candidate to announce, Hillary Clinton, has not yet laid out her tax policy, her most recent pronouncements on taxes show she’s not interested in reducing the amount taxpayers pay, but in making some pay more than they do now to render the same largesse of taxes to the feds.

The other two candidates, who happen to be Republicans, are leaning more conservatively on taxes: Everybody pays less and the government gets less.

Rand Paul, the libertarian-leaning candidate, wants to simplify the tax code, make the IRS smaller and “unleash an economic boom that creates millions of jobs, boosts wages, and expands opportunity for all.”

He is light on the details, but the basic ideas sound good.

Ted Cruz, the Tea Party candidate, wants to abolish the IRS altogether, which doesn’t make sense, because you’re still going to be taxed and somebody’s got to collect the taxes.

But like Paul, Cruz supports the idea that tax bills should be less, to support a smaller federal government.

The Republicans may be on a roll with their victories in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, and while there are concerns they may just shift spending, rather than cut spending, period, the direction the party’s candidates seem to be taking to reduce both taxes and spending overall is encouraging.

On this dark day for taxpayers, there is at least hope that the days of Washington’s excesses may be numbered.

 
 
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