Tax & Economic Policies
Can You Afford NOT To Get Involved?
Some amount of taxes and regulations are necessary for advanced civilizations to function. But while it's clear that lower taxes and less regulation produce greater prosperity for more people over the long term - many seek to use the tax code and government regulations to distort the economy for political gain to accomplish "social" goals, or to right some perceived social wrong, such as combining social justice with global warming to create something called "climate justice".
The Green New Deal for example.
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Boating can be highly sensitive to the wealth effect and dependent on discretionary income so boaters more than many other Americans can be substantially affected by tax and economic regulations.
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Boating interests should be especially concerned by the policies being proffered by the Congressional Democrats and their Presidential candidates. Currently the various Democratic tax plans propose raising maximum tax rates between 70% - 90% and an annual “wealth tax”.
Typical of all of their proposals is Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez where she intertwines tax and social policies by proposing a new taxes and a 70% tax bracket to help fund the "Green New Deal," which would combat both climate change and economic inequality.
What might you expect from a Democratic President and Congress?
How might the objectives of the GND be accomplished and implemented using tax and economic polices?
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If greenhouse gases are a greater threat to our existence than WWII, a new true believing GND Democratic President and Congress could at least be expected at a minimum to immediately implement similar WWII economic policies.
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On the first day of office in January 20, 2021 a new Democratic President could sign an executive order or Democratic Congress could quickly pass laws similar to the successful WWII strategies directly limiting, rationing, and even prohibiting the use of all fossil fuels for all non-essential and recreational uses – specifically prohibiting any fuels for any and all recreational boats. Thus, just operating the engine or generator on recreational boats could become illegal - if you could even find the fuel.
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Government prohibition and elimination of all fossil fuels for recreational uses has happened before, why not again?
It was successful then, why not now?
If one truly believes in the GND and the 10 -year window to prevent global extinction from greenhouse gasses – why wouldn’t they, why shouldn’t they – immediately act to preserve humanity and protect the planet? Eliminating all unnecessary recreational green house gases would be the prudent thing to do.
Alternatively, a Democratic President and Congress could reduce potential push back and be more subtle and cater to the “income inequality” wing of the party by using the tax code and selective enforcement. Or they could be more refined, be industry specific, and just target boat owners and the boat industry in several ways.
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Rather than prohibit fuel for recreational use, the government could just implement additional taxes to such an extent on certain boating fuels to effectively make it impractical to operate a motorized recreational vessel.
Or the IRS as they often do from time to time, could decide to specifically target certain industries. Making it known that the IRS is now targeting boating enterprises of all types, companies, professionals, and boat owners and even employees for tax audits – would go a long way to curtail demand making boat ownership simply too expensive and risky.
Remember how Lois Lerner and the IRS under the Obama administration specifically targeted conservative groups for added government scrutiny and tax audits. The fact is there are innumerable tax scenarios that could easily make the cost of boat ownership too expensive – too expensive to own and certainly too expense to ever operate.
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An aggressive tax strategy would also play well to many of the most radical elements of the Democratic party: global warming, income inequality, and tax fairness being the most obvious.
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Believing the survival of the planet is at risk from greenhouse gases, Democrats can easily justify almost any action.