So, when did McCarthy arrest anyone? Oh and when did McCarthy serve in the House as a Democrat on the HUAC? The committee that you reference was lead by a Democrat. The same party that continues to perpetuate its lies. Morrow was full of it, too. Just as Cronkite has admitted to playing the party lines.

+5 Sales tax is hard to enforce. Income tax places two individuals at odds over the income tax. The employer can not cheat the government as the employee would simply make a call. Income tax is considerably easier to enforce due to the opposing forces involved in this system. Countries with withholding systems obtain the money on a reliable basis.

The list is inaccurate. Some items are not compared properly. FICA is a payroll tax on the employees. Medicare is another payroll tax which is authorized by the statute following the FICA tax. Germany does not have such payroll taxes. In someways they have a system which is less complex but more regressive as the federal government relies upon hard to collect transaction taxes which affect the poor more than the rich. In addition to the income tax the republic also collects the church tithes, which is approximately 10% of the annual tax bill. Bet you did not see that one. Many of these churches conduct social welfare programs. They are an extension of government in that they provide medical programs and hospitals as well. They have income tax rates, which can reach 50.5%. We have tax rates for the self employed including income tax and the other payroll taxes which can vary at percentage due to unlimited basis for medicare and a maximum amount for FICA. Someone earning $300,000 would be taxed at the federal rate of 33%. They would also be subject to FICA tax equivalent to 2.7%. If the person is self-employed(no difference in Germany), then the FICA tax would be equivalent to 5.4%. The medicare tax would be equivalent to 1.45% or 2.9% if self employed. If you were employed by some entity in the USA, then you would pay 37.15% of your income for federal taxes. You would also have to pay at least 10%(highly variable) of your income to the states. Remember, that German government only really has a federally collected tax; this also considerably reduces collection and administrative burdens. So if you might pay 41% of your income to fed government in Germany(including tithe) isn't this cheaper then perhaps 47.15% of your income in America? Plus, if you are self-employed then you would actually pay 41.3% to the federal government plus 10% for 51.3%. Remember, Germany has better health care and better retirement age options. We have a much older age base used for the calculation of pensions. Which system is fairer and more cost efficient?

Just because someone has a high income tax rate does not mean that the system is fundamentally unfair. A progressive tax system would allocate the burden of the government on a pro-rata basis in regards to usage and ability to pay. Sales tax is a regressive system, which taxes almost everything. Coindicky, Massachusetts had one of the LOWEST if NOT LOWEST sales tax rate in the country. Most of the other states had local taxes and county taxes. Some people might pay 10% on bread and milk. In massachusetts you do not pay sales tax on food unlike every other state. In most states you are paying a high tax of 10% on food. I don't know about you, but I spend approximately 25% of my income on food. I worry about having kids to feed in the future. One of these individuals in a high tax jurisdiction with a salary of 50,00 would suffer the equivalent of 2.5% income tax just for buying food. I am sorry. They are suffering right now. They have to buy clothes, too! Sales tax favors the rich. It pays to be rich in places such as Florida, where you have no income tax. You pay less. You have no burden paying sales tax on your purchases as you do not buy more food then the next individual. A fair tax or VAT would only see this rise to new heights in inequity. Sales tax is also impossible to collect in entirety. It requires significant more personnel to police than an income tax system based on wage garnishment. Any nationalized system to collect tax on a transactional basis would require an organization considerably larger than the current IRS. It would require offices in many more locales in order to reach out to the public. The IRS currently has 100k employees. Each state government has at least 1,000 employees involved in collecting taxes, right now. I would think that a fair tax or vat would require at least 50k more employees on the federal level, but you also need more management to handle the new personnel and facilities. I also think that you need more employees to provide the coverage. Some states have very sparse employee counts.

Where do you get this non-sense? Have you ever been to a church? Do you simply have no idea? 1/4 of the US population are roman catholics. The Roman Catholic church believes in evolution. Most of the US population(including bishops) disagrees with the Catholic church on many things stemming from Vatican II such as language of masses. The Lutheran Church was not about hellfire and a figurative view of the bible. It was about providing access to God without the structure of the Roman Church and in the native language. Calvinism is very similar. So isn't the Methodist offshoot. Those equate to probably significantly more than 50% of the population of the US.

It also prevented most Jewish scientists from rising to the top. It took Einstein almost 20 years from his first published paper until he became a professor. He also suffered from attacks and bounced from one university to the next.

I have watched the poor results of my school system. I have compared the results of my school to the other schools in my region. My area has an epidemic of highly rated public schools(Massachusetts). Yet, little seems to rub from these schools off to the other local schools. I have noticed in my personal observations that the quality of teachers can be far different from one to the next. My school system has spent enormous amounts of times with problematic teachers. I have noticed that other schools hire teachers with better educational backgrounds and have significantly less problems. Every year the teachers campaign and hold picket signs in my town. However, many of them do not live here. They picket on public property and some private property in order to encourage the voters to approve their pay raises. They put a lot of effort into canvassing the neighborhood, when it comes to election season. They devote lots of hours to telephone calls. Yet, many of them are out the door at 2:30 to work their second jobs in order to earn social security quarters. I only hear them bemoan the issues of pay, when they are paid 10% higher than the employees of surrounding towns. I never hear complaints about the education. A tour of every single school while in my official capacity only netted one comment from a principal. I asked about possible improvements at every turn. The lone principal, whom was close to retirement, asked why have the computers when you have no plan for them. I do not think there ever was a plan for anything in my school system. I do not see the tenured teachers striking complaints about the issues.

Yes. Did you know that the FCC requires a check on tissue exposure? There is a Maximum Permissable Exposure regulation. There are charts based on studies. It is a serious issue, which is hugely distorted by ELF. The other thing is that the emission of carbon dioxide might not effect global warming in the huge direct corelation, which ELF and others purport. On the radio front there has been huge intake of disappointment due to low solar activity. There has been talk of a new Maraunder Minimum. With decreasing solar activity we might actually have the Earth heated less by the sun. Some have speculated that a Maruander Minimum and the corresponding overall decrease in solar activity could drop the average temperature by 1 degree. The body does absorb RF. The new "cooking" method to eradicate cancer which has been shown on 60 Minutes used HF. Is there a potent danger from the radio station? No. ELF is whacked. These guys talk about scientific models as the basis for destruction of property and physical violence towards human beings. The scientific models are incomplete and very imprecise. It is not rational to murder people over such models. The results of global warming might be better for everyone, too. I know that I am looking forward to beach front property when the coast floods. ;)

Well, the railroad land grant system has not been reviewed in the correct context. Prior to the development of the land in Nebraska and Iowa, the federal land was worthless. No one could reach the land and ship backwards to the east coast. The federal government gave some land away in order to sell their land at a much higher value. It is akin to making someone a teaser offer prior to the big sale. Hardly a match to annual licensing of spectrum fees for large sums. Our average cellphone bill per a customer is many times higher than those in most Asian countries. Land costs to many settler had been extremely low in comparison to land costs in foreign countries.

I had thought everyone know that the $70 number from the New York Times is extremely misleading. The $70 includes the payments to the retirement funds for RETIRED workers. This is for pension of GM workers that management has never paid during the last 40 years. It is only $50 for the current worker and his or her benefits. It is not far from the average of a Toyota worker in the US. Toyota workers in Japan earn more. GM management has insisted upon pushing designs to market that no one wants to buy. They also continue to think that everyone is going to buy a new car every three years. The demand is not there. The average age of a car in my state is 10 years; I live in a blue state, too. You can't build 50 million cars when only 30 million customers are out there. GM management has continued to ignore the wishes of the marketplace. Look at how the car prices have declined. Yet, they still can not make money.

Except every state has a blanket taxation of fuel and a refund for non-highway fuel usage.

Except that they are able to build new lines in France. Most of the TGV routes are on lines of new construction. Germany built a line from Frankfurt to Cologne. Europe has much more vicious environmental protests, ecoterrorists, more regulation, and higher land costs? If they can? Why not the US?

You are aware of the fact that General Motors used to build Electric locomotives? Rail technology had relied heavily upon General Motors products from the 1950's until the early 1980's. GM produced a product that worked. If a part failed in the -2, then you pulled it out. You simply put a new module in place of the failed part. Your shops could repair or obtain a new part while the locomotive was in operation. GM failed to bring any new TRACTION metholodogies to market during the 1990's. GE was a always a minor player. They slowly assumed dominance with the larger push to computerized consoles with computer controlled braking and power and AC traction. GM did not see how to improve fuel efficiency and meet the high EPA standards set during the BUSH administration. Their foreign sales were drying up as the new markets bought GE products. China was buying FRENCH and GERMAN high speed rail for passenger projects and not diesel electrics for slow freight products. They committed the same management failure in the train market as the car market. They failed to develop new products for the changing marketplace. Once they realized that people are not going to buy SD40's forever, they came out with the SD80 and the SD70. However, this is like buying a Chevy Astro Van today with is the same as the chevy Astro Van model of 15 years ago. They realized that the market place is not going to keep buying the stuff. So they sold out. One of the big plants in IL which made lots of train engines was razed several years back.