Yes, that’s right folks: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid believes—at least, he says over and over again in this interview—that when it comes to paying taxes in this country, “our system is a voluntary system.” When the interviewer suggests that in order to pay welfare benefits to parties of the first part, the government forcibly takes money from parties of the second part, Senator Reid oscillates between indignation and incomprehension. Of course, you may not cheat on your taxes, he allows, but really, at bottom, our system of taxation—unlike, he says, the system in many European countries—is “voluntary.” But, says the interviewer, following my own thought processes like a leopard, if you don’t pay your taxes, the government will first fine you and ultimately, should your recalcitrance be serious enough, will put you in jail.
Senator Reid objects to “the phraseology” of that observation. Our system is voluntary he says again, mantra-like. What could he mean? (What, you might ask yourself, has he been smoking?) I do not really know. I hope some enterprising citizen will send Reid’s bulletin to the Internal Revenue Service: I should like to get its reading on the question of whether our system of taxation is voluntary. Can you put down “Thanks, but I’d rather not” on your 1040 form? Of course not.
Now Senator Reid knows this as well as you do. What game is he playing? (“Obfuscation” is not a precise enough answer.) There is something powerfully weird about Reid’s performance. I am not sure I know what it is. But it smells like humbug, and that smells bad.
It’s called taxation WITH representation, Rog. Apparently, had you lived in colonial America, you would have objected to the cost of the tea tax, not the fact that it was involuntary.
“I am not sure I know what it is.”
Harry Reid’s world revolves around him. I am reminded of the flunkies who surrounded Elvis Presley. The singer would get bombed out of his skull and start pointing to a painting and describe it as a great piece of art. Everyone around him would completely agree. Ten minutes later Presley might change his mind and say it was pure garbage Needless to add, his parasitical entourage would enthusiastically agree! Reid pays no cost for saying something dumb.
#1 “It’s called taxation WITH representation”
“Voluntary taxation” would appear to mean that if you voluntarily vote for people like Reid who want to drain the citizenry of their wealth, then that fact by extension means that you “voluntarily” submit to taxation. Of course, if you voluntarily vote to throw Reid back into the deserts of Nevada, that would mean that one no longer subscribed to the above, and that would mean that taxation would go back to being “involuntary” again. Reid has, in short, written the recipe for his own ouster from the Senate by the vote of his constituents. Let us hope that Nevada voters choose voluntarily to do just that.
curiouser and curiouser.
That looks like Reid from 10-15 years ago, not now. I don’t know the context of the interview, either. Maybe this was back when he was buddies with John Hancock and Thomas Jefferson, and they thought their taxes that went to the King should be voluntary. I can’t imagine he would take this attitude now that he’s in the American government.
Reid is trying to play word games because he is wrong, and he knows it.
This is called arguing by definition and it is a common tactic of the left. When someone gets wise to their BS and calls them on it, they begin contesting the terms used to describe said BS.
Everyone remembers Bill Clinton’s meaning of the word “is” charade. Reid is just playing the same game.
The trap that this interviewer fell into, which is a common one when honest people deal with leftists, was that he assumed Reid was acting and speaking in good faith.
One clarification: Danny Williams is A PREMIER, one of 10 in Canada, roughly equivalent to state governors in the USA. However, he does supervise the Province of Newfoundland’s government mandated health care plan. It is very telling therefore that he doesn’t even choose to fly to another canadian province for his treatment but he goes to Florida. NOTE: Within Canada, Newfoundlanders are the butt of many jokes, what the southern redneck is to folks from the northeast. NOTE II: Ten years ago, it was published that a former Canadian PRIME MINISTER was getting his check ups at the Mayo Clinic. That info about his confidence in the system was one of many reasons motiviating me to get out of there.
Reid’s a democrat and they have shown that taxes are voluntary. The Dem elites only HAVE to pay them if they are appointed to a high level position and then there are no penalities for not paying. The majority of Dems are in the 50% of wage earners that don’t pay taxes (you can’t be a tax payer w/o paying so you are a wage earner).