Here’s a fun little documentary for your weekend. As in all documentaries of it’s kind, the main point is a bit strange, and the path used to get there very…. let’s say “windy.” However, I’m completely onboard with the resulting goal: get rid of the ‘Federal’ Reserve. It’s time to re-establish public asset backing for the dollar. Also, it’s time to eliminate the federal income tax.

Yes, the government DOES have the authority to steal your money. It doesn’t make it any less immoral.

And where is this tea coming from?

Rick Santelli is a reporter for CNBC, and an expert in things financial. He was reporting from the floor of Chicago’s CBOE (Chicago Board Options Exchange) sometime today and apparently got everyone a little rowled up. See the video here. He is expressing his… let’s call it ‘lack of gratitude’… for Obama’s latest “bailout” policy, in which it’s become clear that people who bought homes that they could never afford will be allowed to keep their homes at the expense of tax payers. In passing, he mentioned the possibility of a new Boston-like “Tea Party,” in which we would all throw mortgage-backed security papers into lake Michigan. I’ve gotta admit, I’m feeling his sentiment. I’m not too thrilled with the idea that I’ll be held partially responsible for mortgages that my neighbors can’t afford.

I found the video to be a bit inspiring, personally. Mostly because I’m starting to think I’m the only person who knows that you can’t spend your way out of debt and financial difficulty. Sure, Reagan spent our way to victory over the Red Soviet Union in a somewhat similar financial situation, but he (at least partially) paid for it with tax cuts. Yeah, it does still sound crazy to liberals, but it doesn’t make it any less a part of reality. I suppose that the vast majority of conservatives feel that we are greatly to the right of the peak of the Laffer curve, while liberals don’t believe there’s a curve at all (and instead see a direct and positive relationship of revenue to tax rate). I would actually be ok with more spending if it included massive tax cuts, but I’d never be ok with spending on what we are spending on today.

So, after reading a bit more on the subject of this “tea party,” I found a poll at CNBC, asking if you would join the party. In a time where it seems like 50 % of everyone that ever responds to any poll will disagree with the remainder of the pollees, I found the results a bit surprising. Head over to the CNBC poll and see for yourself.

Obama has a slight problem on his hands as he watches several of his political nominations fail to pass the political test after it was revealed that they were guilty of not paying their taxes. Conservatives have an even bigger problem in failing to recognize the case that this makes for a fair tax (consumption based tax) as a replacement for the income tax.

Yes, Obama’s nominees with tax problems are (mostly) being withdrawn from their respective nominations. Tom Daschel had been nominated for Secretary of Health and Human Services until it was discovered that he owed taxes for a gift that he had received. The gift: several years of limousine and driver service, offered by a longtime friend, which was gratefully accepted by Mr. Daschel. It’s no secret that I think Tom is a twisted political jerk, but there’s no way in hell I’m going to blame a guy for not claiming a gifted limo service on his taxes. Timothy Geithner was nominated for Treasury Secretary, and it did not take long for his ridiculously enormous history of tax evasion to become a national news story. A problem that has been well documented on the end-all source Wikipedia. Geithner smells dirty, but his initial tax problem was probably a just a simple mistake. His employer was not withholding the one half of Social Security and Medicare normally withheld from your paychecks (yes, for all you youngn’s out there, that huge amount of money that you see withdrawn from your check is only HALF of the money you owe to Uncle Sam), and he consequently only paid half of his owed taxes. Then, there’s Nancy Killefer, who owes just under a grand for unemployment taxes for “household help.” Yes, I’m sure that she intentionally paid the rest of her humongous income taxes, but neglected to pay a grand for unemployment because she’s an evil tax evader. She probably made an enormous amount of money accounting for the fact that she needed a maid as her own personal employee (the only way she would’ve been required to pay unemployment), so her income taxes were probably at least 30 or 40 times the unpaid tax amount. I bet you could pin tax evasion on Obama himself if you looked hard enough.

Here’s where Republicans step in with the cute comments and accusations of class warfare. Yes, Democrats are building a divide between the haves and have nots, but that doesn’t mean that they are intentionally not paying their taxes. It’s as if we are to believe that they have some sort of sick idea that they are the great and powerful leviers of taxes, and that the believe that they are exempt from the very laws they pass for the rest of us, the lowly scum that has to pay. Let’s be honest. They all just screwed up. It’s not a conspiracy.

The problem that I have with my fellow Conservative movement is that we’ve failed to recognize that these people are simply victim to the very system they themselves created. They’ve built such a complex beast that they can’t figure out how to keep it from biting the hand that feeds it. Instead, the Conservative movement lay quiet, or is distracted with the gargantuan special interest stimulus plan. These tax problems aren’t an opportunity to take jabs at liberals for being “elitists,” but rather an opportunity to ask the elitists to accept the fact that our tax code requires it’s own massive economy just in order to help with compliance. Let’s face it. If an ex-Senate Minority Leader can’t figure out how to pay his taxes… we’re all screwed. For heaven’s sake, that man is probably indirectly responsible for the very tax law that he was bitten by, and inconsequently he’ll probably be responsible for the extra book of law appended to the tax code in order to exclude himself from limousine taxes in the future.

Instead of jumping on fellow victims of the IRS, let’s force them to face the facts in their time of weakness. The facts are that the income tax is too complicated, unfair, and every capable politician since the income tax was created in 1913 has put their dirty hands in the tax code, offering their own reasons why they and their friends should not have to pay. Repeal the income tax. Make constitutional ammendment to ban the Federal government from ever stepping into our pay checks ever again. Replace the income tax with a consumption tax (sales tax). It’s simple, and we can all figure it out. Plus, you’ve just figured out how to tax the enormous underground economies that don’t pay income taxes. That is unless they start building Wal Mart’s underground (which would make a large percentage of Americans happy).

According to this article, which has calculated the full cost (so far) of the recent bailouts, the total includes the 700 billion dollar bank bailout of Fall 2008, the 816 billion dollar bank bailout of last month, 3 trillion from the FDIC over the last two years, and another 5.7 trillion pledged, another 780 billion (at least, but I’d say 1.5 trillion) to be passed very soon (God forbid it!). That brings the total to… <one sec please>… <carry the 1>… <divide by 0>… <plus the square root of negative 7>… 9.7 TRILLION dollars. Or, as I like to put it.

$$$$ 1 GAZILLION DOLLARS $$$$