Ronald Reagan discusses inflation as a tax increase.

(Hat tip to Conservative Daily Blog)

“Let’s turn to your paycheck, because here’s where the government really profits from inflation. We have a progressive income tax. As your income increases you find the government takes a higher percentage, say, of the second $10,000 you earn than of the first. Now, let’s say you get a raise simply to keep even with the increased cost of living, to make you able to buy what you could before the raise. But you can’t, for that increase in the number of dollars puts you into a higher tax bracket. The government takes a greater share of those new dollars. And suddenly you find you haven’t kept up with inflation. After taxes your worse off than you were before the raise. Nine times out of ten, though, you blame high prices, not your taxes.”

I grew up loving Ronald Reagan. Maybe it was because Michael J. Fox always talked him up on Family Ties. Or, perhaps it was my parents, who came to the USA from a Communist country and would talk to us about Reagan and the promise of freedom and individual liberty in America.

Listening to the former President discuss how government uses stealth taxes to steal our wealth is truly eye opening. You would be hard pressed to find a politician today, other than maybe Ron Paul and a handful of others, that have a deeper understanding of the working of government than did Reagan. Before becoming President, he had written thousands of pages in his own journals about his political philosophies and ideas. How many of our Senators do you think actually have an understanding of individual liberties and the dangers of unchecked government power? Sometimes I wonder what percentage of Congress has actually read the US Constitution.

Listen to Reagan on Inflation and Taxes:

As an encore, we give you President Ronald Reagan standing up to the red commies next to the very wall they built to keep their people enslaved.

This is truly one of my personal favorite Presidential speeches of all time and, to this day, brings me chills when I hear the President deliver the grand poobah. Do you believe the political leaders of today have the spine that Reagan did when he stood, literally, at the very doorstep of the enemy and demanded they let their people live free?

On the 20 year anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, let’s remember President Reagan for the important role he played in bringing real change we can believe in to the people of the world.