{"id":310,"date":"2012-06-04T00:21:34","date_gmt":"2012-06-04T00:21:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/?p=310"},"modified":"2014-02-09T05:32:03","modified_gmt":"2014-02-09T05:32:03","slug":"ex-patriot-act-has-no-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/blog\/2012\/06\/ex-patriot-act-has-no-place\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ex-PATRIOT Act Has No Place in a Free Society – Article by Ron Paul"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"The<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Ron Paul
\n<\/big><\/big><\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
June 3, 2012<\/big><\/span><\/div>\n
Recommend this page<\/a>.<\/strong><\/div>\n
******************************<\/div>\n
\n

The characteristic mark of a tyrannical regime is that it eventually finds it necessary to erect walls to keep people from leaving. \u00a0This is why we should be troubled by the \u201cEx-PATRIOT Act,\u201d an egregiously offensive bill recently introduced in the Senate.\u00a0 Following a long line of recent legislation and regulations attempting to expropriate more and more wealth from hard-working Americans, this new bill spits in the face of overburdened taxpayers and tramples on the Constitution.<\/p>\n

Current law already dictates that Americans with a net worth of over $2 million who expatriate must be assumed to have sold all their assets and must pay a corresponding punitive exit tax on those assumed sales.\u00a0 The Ex-PATRIOT Act goes even further than current law by assessing a 30% capital gains tax on all\u00a0future <\/strong>earnings of expatriates.\u00a0 Not content just with this additional tax, the bill also grants the IRS the sole authority to determine whether individuals have expatriated for tax purposes and allows the IRS to bar those individuals from\u00a0ever<\/strong>\u00a0re-entering the United States.\u00a0 Finally, the bill blatantly violates the ex post facto provisions of the U.S. Constitution by extending all of these provisions to anyone who has given up their U.S. citizenship within the past decade.<\/p>\n

This bill, and other similar legislation, casts a chilling effect on saving, investment, and entrepreneurial activity.\u00a0 The bill was introduced in response to news reports about one of the founders of Facebook who might save millions of dollars of taxes by renouncing his U.S. citizenship.\u00a0 But in their blind envy towards successful entrepreneurs, the bill’s sponsors ignore the fact that they will ensnare many ordinary middle-class Americans who work hard, save and invest wisely, and benefit from rising home values.\u00a0 These Americans may easily find themselves pushing past the $2 million mark by the time they retire, especially as inflation continues to seriously accelerate.\u00a0 If they wish to escape the Federal Reserve’s inflation by emigrating to lower-cost countries so their dollars will go farther, as many Baby Boomers are starting to do, the federal government will penalize them, and continue to penalize them for the rest of their lives as long as they hold any money in the United States.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the mere consideration of such legislation, even before it has passed, has made American banking customers a potential future headache for banks around the world.\u00a0 They don’t want to deal with the IRS any more than Americans do, and if American account holders become a Trojan horse for the IRS to insinuate themselves into their affairs, there may be more cost than benefit to extending banking services to Americans.<\/p>\n

We live under a federal government that has eviscerated our Fourth Amendment rights, that can detain U.S. citizens indefinitely based solely on the President’s word, that assaults toddlers and grandmothers at airports in the name of security, and regulates virtually every aspect of our economic lives.\u00a0 No wonder increasing numbers of Americans feel this government is engaged in outright warfare against its own citizens.\u00a0 Every day the noose grows tighter, yet anyone who sees the writing on the wall and seeks to leave must pay exorbitant taxes just for the privilege of leaving, and increasingly the possibility looms of never fully breaking away from the government’s tentacles no matter where they go.\u00a0 Ultimately, the Ex-PATRIOT Act proposes to control people by controlling their capital, and it has no place in a free society.<\/p>\n

Representative Ron Paul (R \u2013 TX), MD, is a Republican candidate for U. S. President. See his Congressional webpage<\/a> and his official campaign website<\/a>.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

This article has been released by Dr. Paul into the public domain and may be republished by anyone in any manner.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ron Paul June 3, 2012 Recommend this page. ****************************** The characteristic mark of a tyrannical regime is that it eventually finds it necessary to erect walls to keep people from leaving. \u00a0This is why we should be troubled by the \u201cEx-PATRIOT Act,\u201d an egregiously offensive bill recently introduced in the Senate.\u00a0 Following a long line of recent legislation and regulations attempting to expropriate more and more wealth from hard-working Americans, this new bill spits in the face of overburdened taxpayers…<\/p>\n

Read More Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[375,655,444,616,660,654,659,37,164,84,657,656,30,59,65,661,653,658,56,53,25],"class_list":["post-310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-bill","tag-capital","tag-congress","tag-constitution","tag-ex-post-facto","tag-ex-patriot-act","tag-exit","tag-federal-government","tag-free","tag-freedom","tag-internal-revenue-service","tag-irs","tag-libertarian","tag-liberty","tag-ron-paul","tag-senate","tag-tax","tag-taxes","tag-totalitarian","tag-tyranny","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2143,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310\/revisions\/2143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}