The old adage "Be careful what you wish for" comes to my mind every time I hear someone with more money than they can ever spend whining about paying taxes.
This morning, April 15, I got an email message from the White House showing how my tax dollars are being spent. While I'd of course like to get defense spending down to a sane and necessary level and to eliminate all waste, fraud, and inefficiencies from all departments, I will still say that overall, there is more good than bad work being done by my government and I don't see any other country where I would rather live. So, I'm more than happy to pay my share to maintain and improve Club USA.
For those who are so distraught that they haven't yet been able to squeeze or steal every last dollar out of the 99% pockets, I say let them have what they want - zero taxes.
Of course, there would be consequences for those electing to stop paying their membership dues in Club USA. So, here's a first pass list of what they will have to surrender in exchange for zero taxes:
1. Surrender your passport. If you don't want to be in Club USA, you must surrender your membership card.
2. Forget about your Club USA patents, trademarks, copyrights, etc. Club USA has no reason to defend or protect the intellectual property of non-club members.
3. Fire your lawyers. Non-club members do not have access to Club USA courts. Unless, of course, you want to pay Club USA the usage fees that we may, at our discretion, choose to grant you, on a cost +++ basis of course.
4. Add a lot of usage fees to your budget - any use of Club USA resources (e.g. roads, schools, law enforcement, parks, etc.) will of course again be available to you only on a cost +++ basis with rates adjusted annually.
5. Deduct a lot of money from your estimated net profit. If you're not paying taxes, then of course you can't expect any tax credits, incentives, or any other transfer of even a single $1 from Club USA to you.
6. Add a whole bunch of money to your budget to defend your business interests overseas. Club USA will no longer be providing you with free military or diplomatic services.
7. Add more money to your R&D budget. You will no longer have any access to NASA or any other Club USA research resources. These resources will not be available to you at all as we will keep those R&D investments for Club USA members only.
There have always been varying degrees of privatizing profit and billing the public for losses, but the obscene gluttony of the past 15+ years has just gone too far. You don't want to continue your membership in Club USA? Great! Because we can't afford your freeloading any longer - don't let the door hit you in the butt on the way out.