E-Newsletter No. 82 October 2020
The underlying concepts behind The 2020 Initiative are based on Thomas Paine’s Common Sense and the Tenth Amendment. Thomas Paine wrote – Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our want, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices…. Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one….
The Tenth Amendment reads – The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
As we have written the past several months, our federal government has managed to escape the confines of the US Constitution. One of the biggest problems our country faces today is that we have collectively lost our Common Sense. Governments inevitably try to grow and assume more power over people’s lives. The normal progression is from freedom and liberty, to coercion, to tyranny. Our country has reached a tipping point regarding socialism because of the ongoing march of the “progressive” movement. Career politicians are buying huge numbers of votes with baskets full of money.
The 2020 Initiative represents an attempt to use the federal income tax code to help resurrect civil society and take money and power out of the hands of the federal government. The first step in this process is to implement Term Limits, to reduce the power of career politicians, who will unfortunately try to thwart these efforts and cling to power. Our country would be much better served, if our elected legislators were to go to Washington DC to advance the interests of the country as a whole and then return home to live under the laws they have passed. There are plenty of talented people in our country who could make this happen going forward. We do not need “political elites” in Washington DC to run our lives for us.
We propose taking funds out of the hands of the federal government by letting We-the-People decide where we want to invest our funds. In connection with the federal government’s annual budgeting process, our elected legislators debate and ultimately decide how much individuals and families will be required to “contribute to society”, but we get to decide where most of those dollars go. Tax credits for contributions to charities will serve two purposes – the funds will naturally flow to the most pressing issues and to those groups that best fulfill their organization’s mission, and those dollars will not get into the hands of the federal government to be consumed by waste, fraud and abuse.
We recommend (unfortunately) that the regressive taxes associated with the various socialist programs (Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security) will need to stay in place until those programs are fundamentally transformed. We also believe that no individual / family should pay federal income taxes until their taxable income is sufficient to cover their own cost of living, which needs to include the cost of their own health insurance plan.
We recognize that many of our country’s citizens need assistance from time to time, and therefore, we propose two new questions on the annual federal income tax form where people can request to be eligible for welfare benefits. BTW, we also believe that every citizen should be counted in an “annual census process” that is accomplished via a requirement that every person needs to be included on a federal income tax return. The current tax system, which is based on a minimum threshold of income for filing needs to be eliminated, and every citizen should be required to fulfill their obligation to file an annual federal income tax return, even if they do not have any taxable income. This would also be the means by which they elect to receive welfare benefits. And we recommend that the Social Security Administration be transformed into an agency that can help those citizens who say they need assistance, by directing those individuals / families to the appropriate local civil society charity(s) that can best help them meet their specific needs.
Our country is at the crossroads. We can make a hard left and accept the radical Left’s agenda and socialism. Or we can move forward with a conservative agenda that advances the concepts of personal responsibility, a (very) limited government, a re-energized civil society (that remains civil), and a free market. This year’s elections represent yet another battle in the ongoing fight to protect our freedoms, Liberty, and unalienable rights. Our country’s citizens need to soundly reject the progressives’ ideas about additional “government-granted rights” (entitlements) which can only be fulfilled by continuing to increase the size and scope of the federal government.
US Debt Clock – – September 1st – $80,888 per citizen / October 1st – $81,200