Simplifying and Reducing Taxes
Personal and Corporate Income Tax Cuts
On average, individual Americans pay about 30% of the income that they earn to the government. Corporations bear an even larger portion of the tax burden and pay an average of 26% of the revenue that they earn. These taxes are ultimately always paid by the consumer.
This high tax burden suffocates our economy and chokes off job growth by funneling money away from productive investments and redistributes wealth to the least productive members of society.
NLT Believes:
Across-the-board cuts in personal and corporate income taxes (in the neighborhood of 15%) would significantly energize our economy and help America to better compete in global markets.
Tax Limitation Amendment to the Constitution
Tax increases are often foisted on the American people in order to fund special interest projects of dubious value or to make up for past “spending sprees.”
NLT Believes:
A concrete way to limit the government’s ability to tax and spend without consequences is to pass an amendment to the United States Constitution requiring that any tax increase be approved by a recorded vote of two-thirds of both houses of Congress.
Cost of Government Awareness Act
The federal government forces employers to do the government’s job and act as unpaid tax collectors by withholding taxes from every employee’s paycheck. Because of this forced withholding, many Americans aren’t aware of the true size and cost of the government that they pay for.
NLT Believes:
Employers should not have to do the government’s job of tax collecting. The federal withholding requirement should be replaced and Americans should be required to directly pay the government any taxes that are owed so that Americans are painfully aware of the amount they are paying to keep the government running.
Death Tax
While they are alive, Americans are faced with taxes on their income, on their businesses, on their investments, and on their property. Yet, they still face hefty taxes even after death. Bereaved relatives can be forced to pay the IRS up to 40% to maintain a family home or business after a family member passes away — a home or business that has already been taxed.
NLT Believes:
The “death tax” that is imposed by the federal government is insulting to American families and should be abolished.
Capital Gains Tax
The Capital Gains Tax imposes punitive taxes on job-creating investments and taxes citizens for “gains” that are largely the result of inflation.
NLT Believes:
The Capital Gains Tax suffocates our economy and unfairly burdens investors and should, therefore, be abolished.
Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution
For 35 of the last 40 years the federal government has spent more money than it has collected in revenue. This has resulted in a spiraling federal debt burden of more than 28 trillion dollars that drains resources desperately needed for economic growth and development.
NLT Believes:
Congress should put the brakes on out-of-control spending by an amendment to the Constitution of the United States that would require a balanced budget every year unless a deficit is authorized by a recorded vote of three-fifths of both houses of Congress.
Federal Spending
Over the last decade, federal spending has increased, on average, 3.6% every year while the rate of inflation during the same time period has only been an average of 2.3%. And in 2020 alone, federal spending increased by 45%.
NLT Believes:
Any government increases in spending should be limited to the rate of inflation.
Government Waste
Government Funded Lobbying
Every year the government hands out as much as $160 billion in taxpayer grants to organizations, many of whom use taxpayer funds to lobby the government for more spending and regulations.
NLT Believes:
Legislation should be passed banning government grants or funding to organizations that spend any part of their budget on government lobbying.
Anonymous Earmarks
In 2009, Congress passed an omnibus spending bill, hundreds of pages long, bloated with over 9,000 earmarks costing almost $8 billion, in addition to the more than 2,000 earmarks in the Defense Appropriations Bill. The House of Representatives imposed a ban on earmarks in 2010.
NTL Believes:
Congress should maintain its ban on any and all anonymous earmarks, and oppose any efforts to sneak de facto earmarks into legislation.
Cost of Legislation
Frequently lawmakers must vote for legislation with little information on the total costs. And the public is often completely in the dark until later.
NTL Believes:
Congress must require the Congressional Budget Office to estimate the cost for all legislation and make that information available on the Internet prior to the vote.
Government Micromanagement
The bloated federal bureaucracy burdens taxpayers with a cost of $21 billion a year. But far more meddlesome and expensive are the federal mandates that micromanaging bureaucrats pile on businesses and state and local governments.
NTL Believes:
Legislation should be passed reducing the non-military federal bureaucracy by at least 21%, saving at least $21 Billion per year.
Wasteful Government Agency Regulation
Every year federal agencies issue some 70,000 pages of rules and regulations. Many are grossly outdated and inefficient and cost taxpayers over $1.8 TRILLION yearly in compliance costs.
NLT Believes:
Legislation should be passed that regulations issued by federal agencies automatically expire after 8 years unless public hearings demonstrate that the regulation is still necessary and cost effective.
Lawyer Welfare
The Legal Services Corporation routinely uses federal funds to pursue partisan political cases and sue taxpayers for more social welfare spending.
NLT Believes:
Legislation should be passed to end taxpayer funding for lawyers and their political lawsuits by closing the Legal Services Corporation.
National Endowment for the Arts
The U.S. Constitution contains no permission for the federal government to fund any kind of art, yet the National Endowment for the Arts has doled out more than $4 billion dollars to fund “highly controversial” art projects.
NLT Believes:
Legislation should be passed to end federal funding for the National Endowment of the Arts, thereby ending forced taxpayer subsidies for questionable art projects.
National Endowment for the Humanities
President Biden requested $177.55 million to fund the National Endowment for the Humanities in 2021. Recently, critics strongly protested that their largest grants was for a program to encourage citizens to get together and chat.
NLT Believes:
Legislation should be passed to end federal funding for wasteful “humanities” projects by closing the National Endowment for the Humanities.
District of Columbia
Residents of the District of Columbia already pay among the highest tax rates in the country. Yet U.S. Taxpayers are coerced to pay more than half a billion dollars a year to bail out a government that auditors consider “corrupt and mismanaged.”
NLT Believes:
Legislation should be passed to end taxpayer subsidies and bailouts for the local government expenses of the District of Columbia.
Price Fixing
U.S. consumers pay $2.4 billion per year for inflated sugar costs due to the federal government’s price fixing.
NTL Believes:
Legislation should be passed to end all price supports and quotas which raise the price Americans pay for sugar far above the market price.
Department of Education
While student performance has reached historical lows, President Biden proposed ballooning federal education spending ballooned to $103 billion, a 55% increase from 2020. Virtually none of this money ever makes it to a classroom but instead funds 227 federal education programs.
NLT Believes:
Legislation should be passed to end all federally funded education programs and return full control of education to the state and local levels.