White House adviser hints at introducing a “value added tax”

  All of you people who believed Barack Obama when he promised that he was only going to raise taxes on the people who made over $250,000 could be in for a rude awakening because according to this article,  Paul Volcker– a top adviser in the Obama administration– is suggesting that the answer to the soaring deficits that Barack Obama has burdened the American people and their children with is introducing a value added tax (VAT).

  For those of you who do not know what a VAT is; it is a tax that is levied on businesses during the production of a product at each stage that the value of that product is increased. Once the tax is passed on to the consumer of that product– and it will be passed on– what you end up with is an indirect national sales tax on the consumer on all products that the VAT applies to.

  A value added tax will be a cost increase to the businesses that manufacture products and that cost increase will be passed on to all consumers whether you make $250,000 or not. I guess that the hope of the people who support a VAT  is that, as the costs of these products rise, the people will blame the manufacturers for the increase without realizing that it is actually a tax they are paying and that they will leave the government blameless for what amounts to a tax increase on goods purchased. The tax will be hidden in the price of the affected product and is thus an indirect tax on the American consumer.

  This is a White House adviser that said this; this was not a random thought that was thrown out to the crowd that he was talking to without there being prior thought about it. In my opinion, there has been talk between Barack Obama and his advisers on this issue. Perhaps this was a trial balloon floated out there by Paul Volcker to gauge public reaction.

  We have a government that is out of control in regards to spending and the question that is always asked is, “how can we raise more revenue?” But the question should be, “how can we cut our spending?”  We are facing growing deficits even as I write this and the best way to get them out of control is to stop spending money that we do not have. It seems like a simple enough solution to me. But here is what Paul Volcker had to say about getting the deficit under control:

If at the end of the day we need to raise taxes, we should raise taxes

  This man is advising the president, what do you think is going to happen?