| abstract
| - The size and power of government, the ability to create wealth, and ultimately our freedom to live the kind of lives we want to lead, are inextricably linked to each other. Let's start by talking about prosperity: The more a government spends, the less wealth that is available for the creation of future wealth. Just as a farmer can't benefit over the long term by eating his seed corn, we can't benefit over the long term by allowing government to take our money out of the wealth-creating economy. The disadvantaged are the hardest-hit when our economy goes into a stall due to wasteful government spending. While those who are already wealthy can absorb the damage of high taxes and burdensome regulation, the working poor cannot. They're not losing an additional shopping spree, they're losing their ability to save, to invest and to climb the economic ladder. In a downward-spiraling economy, they may even be losing their livelihood -- one study estimates that every government regulator ultimately destroys 150 real private sector jobs. In the meantime, as government grows, it demands more than our money -- it demands our freedom, too. The primary activity of government is ensuring its own job security by discovering new "problems" to "solve." Each new discovery is followed by new laws to restrict what we may do ... and accompanied by a demand for more money for the privilege of being restricted. At the bottom of the economic ladder, wealth creation is literally a matter of life and death. Not only does lifespan correlate closely with personal wealth, but every dollar invested in government is a dollar that's not invested in a market that could otherwise provide cures for AIDS, cancer, heart disease and other killers. When we allow ourselves to be taxed, we condemn ourselves not only to less freedom, but to shorter lives. How do we set the situation right and open the door to better, freer, longer lives? It's not complicated -- and it's nothing that our country and others haven't done before to one degree or another. We cut taxes, we slash government spending, and we tear down barriers to trade and commerce. No, I'm not talking about making government "more efficient" at what it does -- I'm talking about having it do less-- a lot less. Government agencies and regulations have grown like weeds over our society for the last century, strangling our economic growth and stealing our freedom. Every "temporary measure" becomes permanent, and then grows. It's time to get out the weed killer and do away with these encroachments! No, I'm not talking about changing the way we assess or collect taxes. I'm talking about eliminating the Income Tax and replacing it with nothing. I'm talking about dramatically cutting the rest until we finally arrive at zero tolerance for taxes. Believe it or not, America managed just fine without any federal income tax for more than a century, and most Americans didn't pay it until World War II. Many Americans living today can remember a time when it was the exception, not the rule. It can---and should--be that way again. Besides slashing government spending and dramatically cutting taxes, we need to free ourselves to trade in the global marketplace. I'm not talking about 6-inch-thick "free trade agreements" full of exceptions and reservations and regulation. I'm talking about free trade, period. American consumers deserve the lowest prices and the widest selection of goods and services, that an unrestrained market can and will provide. Why settle for a crippled economy when we can have unlimited wealth instead? Why settle for a shrinking paycheck when it can grow by leaps and bounds? Making our nation an "economic miracle" is as simple as one, two, three: slash government spending, cut taxes, and end trade restrictions. Freedom works as nothing else does!
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