Edited for space. Full article at link.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/03/26/the_vat_cometh_104936.html

The VAT Cometh - By Charles Krauthammer

WASHINGTON

With the passage of Obamacare, creating a vast new middle-class entitlement, a national sales tax of the kind near-universal in Europe is inevitable.

...Obamacare, when stripped of its budgetary gimmicks ... is at minimum a $2 trillion new entitlement.

It will vastly increase the debt...

This is fiscally disastrous because, as President Obama himself explained last year in unveiling his grand transformational policies, our unsustainable fiscal path requires control of entitlement spending...

... the bill enacted on Tuesday...radically expands Medicaid (adding 15 million new recipients / dependents) and shamelessly raids Medicare by spending on a new entitlement the $500 billion in cuts and the yield from the Medicare tax hikes.

...Sure, Social Security can be trimmed by raising the retirement age, introducing means testing and changing the indexing formula from wage growth to price inflation.

But this won't be nearly enough. As Obama has repeatedly insisted, the real money is in health care costs -- which are now locked in place by the new Obamacare mandates.

That's where the value-added tax (VAT) comes in... Every 1 percent of VAT would yield up to $1 trillion a decade (depending on what you exclude - if you exempt food, for example, the yield would be more like $900 billion).

It's the ultimate cash cow. Obama will need it. By introducing universal health care, he has pulled off the largest expansion of the welfare state in four decades. And the most expensive. Which is why all of the European Union has the VAT. Huge VATs. Germany: 19 percent. France and Italy: 20 percent. Most of Scandinavia: 25 percent.

...as we approach European levels of entitlements, we will need European levels of taxation.

Obama's strategy...: Expand the beast, and then feed it. Spend first -- which then forces taxation. Now that, with the institution of universal health care, we are becoming the full entitlement state, the beast will have to be fed.

And the VAT is the only trough in creation large enough.

As a substitute for the income tax, the VAT would be a splendid idea...But to feed the liberal social-democratic project, the VAT must be added on top of the income tax.

Ultimately, even that won't be enough. As the population ages and health care becomes increasingly expensive, the only way to avoid fiscal ruin (as Britain, for example, has discovered) is health care rationing.

It will take a while to break the American populace to that idea. In the meantime, get ready for the VAT.

Or start fighting it.

When Pulitzer Prize-winning Charles Krauthammer speaks, everyone should listen. Regardless of what you may think of Fox contributers and conservatives in general, you can't get more middle-of-the-road nor more intelligent and bipartisan than Krauthammer. I'd give up the entirety of Fox News (and CNN and MSNBC etc) pundits for him alone. He's a class act, and I hold his opinions as trustworthy and reliable. He's not Hannity or Rush or Beck -- he's a real scholar.

That said... I hope he's wrong here! Talk about disastrous for the economy!

When I first watched Krauthammer, I thought he was paralyzed because he sat there (and still does) immobile. But ... where in the world do you get your information? Even before Obama decided to run for President, Krauthammer encouraged him to run so that he could lose even though the Nation wanted a black President. He's characterized the President's legislative proposals as radical, Obamaism, ominous, a social democratic agenda, and states that the President's character is highly suspect. "Middle-of-the-road"? Madonne!

His wording could use some improvement, sure. lol But compared to all the others -- on either side -- he's still the most grounded IMHO. At least I tend to agree with his IDEAS more than the others.

Everyone is biased to some degree, after all.

That's like saying nobody is more middle-of-the-road nor more intelligent and bipartisan than RRA. C'mon Geoff, I expect more than you.

I remember Krauthammer on TV some years back bragging up a storm about how organized and intelligently handling executive that Mitt Romney was. Notice now he doesn't bring up that the fact that his boy's Romneycare healthcare system was a role model for this evil Obamacare.

I trust David Brooks. I trust George Will. David Frum too when he isn't too defeatist. Shit I even to a degree trust somebody crazy (and sometimes crazy brilliant) like Pat Buchanan.

Why? They're intelligent, and it comes across in their writings. I know they're all not legitimate because they're not on Fox News. That's the sad state of the conservative intelligentsia in this nation: Don't tote the ideological rhetoric line, you're a communist. Note the wrath the right wing went on poor Kathleen Parker over at National Review because she criticized the Palin selection in '08.

And to be fair since someone will bitch about this, but MSNBC isn't worth watching worth a shit either. Weird how the "liberal" news channel has (sometimes) the conservative voices I like to listen to. Too bad it's inbetween the bullshit. Joe Scarborough is decent I guess, but again all those jokers on there waste my time in their clownish entertainment routines instead of informing me of something important. Not ideological pornography.

So...go Jim Lehrer?

Wait I guess I am bipartisan afterall.

I could too.



What does that mean anyway? Grounded is a term usually associated I believe with "realist." The only grounded personality at Fox News is Geraldo. I mean at least the Moustache isn't exactly pretentious about his journalistic "self-worth."

Of course I suppose Krauthammer is better than Beck in comparison. But shit, even Hitler is better than Beck in one regard.

At least Hitler knew the difference about Fascism and Socialism. They're not exactly interchangeble terms.

Hell I posted that article where director/douchebag James Cameron called Beck an asshole. Fitting since it was uttered by an asshole. Yet why do I have to side with Cameron? Way to go Glenn. You make me feel dirty for going along with the director of TITANIC.



Like?



Let me try to reply to this like if it was Capo typing: "Pure rubbish, void of any substantive meaning."

Yeah I don't have his concise rhetorical bite.

Oy, y'know what? I'm not smart enough for this conversation.

I presented my opinion as I know it (like anyone else). I'm certainly not a political scholar like Oli or RRA, so I'm backing out here, and in every and all political threads. They only get me intro trouble anyway.

What kills me is that everyone thinks I'm some right-wing extremist. FAR FROM IT! Ideologically, I'm quite left-leaning. OF COURSE everyone should have health care! OF COURSE everyone should have *equal* rights, get married, make their own choices, etc... I'm all for it!

But we're talking health care, and specifically the idea of a VAT here.

WHO HERE IS FOR A VAT????

Thought so.


So call me a Fiscal Conservative then, cuz I can't afford to pay for everyone else when I can barely pay it for myself.

I commend Oli and RRA's finacial accomplishments. *bows down*

I'm done. And it's not because of your superior intellect, but apparently my ignorance.

Cop out.



What's wrong with that? The difference is when some people refuse to be open to new ideas and well, differnet perspectives. The type mostly found on TV and blogs these days.

I hope you're not one of them.



Scholar? I guess I am, since these days being loud and obnoxious is all the qualifications and resume you need to be taken seriously. lol

But Geoff, don't quit just because of me and Oli. What was that Harry Truman quote? "If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen."



err umm, I never did?



Can I make a gay joke here?







Even...Mormons?



You're more fiscal conservative than the GOP have been after Clinton.



Is that a Jew joke?

Because that aint cool.

Okay, I literally laughed out loud at that part... You racist POS you

I "lean" to my right, actually, if you needed/wanted to know that.

But sure, let's hear your gay joke!

He is paralyzed from the chest down. I think he had a diving accident in medical school. But yes, he is quite right-wing.

Yes, I looked it up and he is paralyzed from a diving accident like you posted. Well, his intellect is unaffected, but as I posted above he is definitely not fair-minded. My God, he's an editor of the National Review and right out of the William Buckley school.

But a VAT. Why are we getting so emotional about something that doesn't exist as described by some posters. Don't we have enough that actually does exist to get emotional about? You know, if I had been an Anti-Federalist back in 1787 I could have legitimately objected to the whole idea of a Constitution because it "might" result in everything that it has resulted in that I don't presently like. Thus, no Constitution and probably no Nation.