by Ray DiLorenzo
It isn’t enough to think outside the box. Thinking is passive. Get used to
acting outside the box.
-Tim Ferriss
They say doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the very definition of insanity. If that is true, the last dozen or so presidencies have been insane. I include Trump 45 only because he hired the same worn-out bureaucrats, both military and civilian, and expected them to perform to his liking. But Trump still managed to make important progress.
Trump 47 is different, like night and day. Why Trump’s cabinet appointees are getting such a ration of doo-doo is because they don’t belong to the inner circle—the people that maintain the status quo, that keep the bureaucratic fires burning. Trump wants change, and change always scares the bureaucracy—the deep state. Inefficiency does not bother them. Five people doing the job of one person is just fine with them. But bureaucracy is expensive.
Who else out there talks of creating an ERS, an External Revenue Service, and doing away with the IRS? The ERS would be an agency that collects money from foreign nations in tariffs and fees for doing business with us.
Let me remind everyone that tariffs were the primary form of revenue until 1913, when Woodrow Wilson decided to go inward for money instead of outward. He established the Revenue Act of 1913, reduced the tariff from 40% to 25%, the lowest rate since 1857, and introduced the federal income tax. In other words, he lost whatever America First mantra he had and began stiffing the people instead of going externally. The bill was passed and signed into law on December 23, 1913, when many in Congress had already left for the Christmas holiday.
Tariffs were the greatest form of revenue we had up until 1913, except for a period from 1862 to 1872. Those ten years saw the first income tax for the purpose of funding the Civil War. That income tax was 3% from $600 to $10,000 and 5% over $10,000. This is unlike anything we have seen in modern history.
The tariffs raised enormous government funding, upwards of 95%. They served several purposes: raising revenue, encouraging import substitution, that is, producing the goods here in America rather than abroad, and protecting domestic industry from foreign competition, especially upstarts. They were also valuable in reaching reciprocity agreements with foreign producers.
The original intent of the Revenue Act, the reason for its support in Congress—at least they were told—was to tax the highest incomes, the ‘robber barons.’ These oligarchs did exploit workers with poor wages and working conditions, but that was something Congress could have fixed. These barons were very philanthropic, building infrastructure, concert halls, and libraries. So, I don’t buy the robber baron excuse. If you control the people’s money, you control their lives.
I don’t need to say it, but taxes have become a monster that is out of control. It was like giving a gun to a child. Money appeared seemingly out of nowhere to fund bridges to nowhere, support political allies, and pet projects to justify re-election time after time.
The government has become much too comfortable with the people paying income taxes, sales taxes, self-employment taxes, property taxes, capital gains taxes, inheritance taxes, gift taxes, carbon taxes, travel taxes, value-added taxes, payroll taxes, excise taxes, resort taxes, use taxes, and scores of other taxes with money that has already been taxed.
It is no better in many states. No state should have both a sales tax and an income tax. The reason states like California can spend billions on boondoggles is because they grossly overcharge for every state service they perform and do not perform.
A truism I would like you to never forget: You cannot give the government enough money. They will always cry underfunded no matter how much they are given. I remember California in the early 1980s when they were asking for a lottery to fund education. They got their lottery, and we got dumber kids. And they still say they are underfunded.
RFK, Jr. received quite the gauntlet of harassment during his confirmation hearing. He represents an attack on well-represented industries in Congress, especially the healthcare, food, pharmaceutical, and military industrial complex. It also represents what you can expect when you abandon the Democrat Party and throw yourself in with Democrat enemy #1. Tulsi has a battle to look forward to.
Whoever thought a man that simply wants to make America healthier would get such a ration of sh’t? Kennedy wants to wake people up to the facts. Americans are not healthy. 75% of citizens are overweight, and the medical profession is dictating unproven and questionable treatments, especially for cancer and viruses like COVID. Chemo has saved millions of lives, but it also has killed millions. I lost my best friend to cancer. He took so many rounds of chemo it was causing heart attacks. That conclusion came from his cardiologist.
Accept it or not, cancer treatment is a multi-billion dollar industry. And right now chemo is their standard of care, a treatment that has been around since the 1940s.
Is RFK justified? Absolutely! Why does a food product produced overseas require four ingredients while our version requires 17 ingredients, most of which you can’t pronounce? Why do people in Congress hold up lab reports ‘proving the efficacy’ of vaccines tested by labs that require funding from the pharmaceutical companies that hire them? Why does Big Pharma see fit to advertise on TV?
Kennedy has done more than anyone in the last 50 years to bring attention to our health and the food we’re eating.
President Trump is not just thinking about going outside the box; he’s left the box altogether looking to reinvent government to make it more responsive, lean, and efficient. Any objections?
Originally released February 1, 2025 by the Stand Up America US Foundation
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