From the March 2005 Idaho Observer:

IRS on the ropes?

Fed Chairman Greenspan’s testimony before president’s tax commission foreshadows federal return to excise

taxation

WASHINGTON—Before the Senate Budget Committee Feb. 12, 2004, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan warned Congress that "pay-as-you-go" spending controls are "an essential element in restoring fiscal sanity."

It was at this hearing Greenspan suggested cutting Social Security and Medicare benefits and taxes to help reduce government spending.

The federal government did not take Greenspan’s advice and stayed its course of fiscal insanity—increasing the public debt by about $600 billion in 2004.

Addressing the President’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform March 3, 2005, Greenspan recommended income tax reform and adopting a consumption tax to widen the tax base. He made no mention of the importance of fiscal responsibility or tax cuts this year.

Greenspan opened by commenting that, "...since the exemplary 1986 reform, the tax code has drifted back to be overly complicated and burdened by higher marginal rates and by many special provisions that have undesirably narrowed the tax base."

The tax base is not "narrowing" because of government benevolence, it’s narrowing because the tax-honesty movement is succeeding—millions of people are not paying taxes on wages they used to believe were taxable as income.

Ironically, the income tax was intended to tax the "incomes" of the idle rich because "duties, imposts and excises" placed a disproportionate tax burden on the working poor. This issue is covered in The People’s Income Tax Guide (See ad page 15).