Wayne Parker’s campaign issued a press release on Wednesday (text below) stating that “49% of Griffith’s campaign funds have come from outside the state of Alabama.”  That is absolutely true.  Here is a spreadsheet containing all of the itemized contributions Parker Griffith has received to date according to the FEC.  The total amount is $556,810, of which $285,649 came from sources inside Alabama and $271,161 (49%) came from locales other than Alabama.  When you include contributions from other parts of Alabama outside the 5th district his local contributions total a mere 36%.  Clearly lots of people are willing to give him lots of money to get elected, but over half of them aren’t doing so because they want Griffith to represent them.

Griffith has received about 45% of his funds from PACs and party organizations.  The Wayne Parker campaign PR noted that these PACs included ones operated by Charlie Rangel ($7,000 total) and Rohm Emanuel ($12,000 total).  They also included donations from at least two local politicians: state Rep. Laura Hall and Madison County Commissioner Bob Harrison.  The PAC money included numerous donations from labor unions.  I submitted a question to Griffith’s campaign a while back asking where he stood on union card check legislation.  I have not received a reply.  I’d be surprised if all those unions are showering him with cash just because they think he is a swell guy.

In an interview with WHNT Wayne Parker was quoted as saying, “49% of his contributors are from out of state.”  The local leftists seized on this and called Parker a liar. (Side note: it is a bit curious to see them fighting for Griffith considering he is doing his darnedest to appear conservative, which would put him starkly at odds with them.  Maybe they know something about his real positions that the rest of us can only speculate about.)

I thought it would be instructive to see just what liar means, so I consulted my trusty online dictionary:

liar -noun: a person who tells lies.

Well, that is of dubious use in this situation, so lets see what it means to lie:

lie -noun: a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive; an intentional untruth; a falsehood.

There are other definitions of course.  Most have the common theme of intent to mislead.  Now based on Parker’s press release and the numbers that back it up it is apparent that he made a slight, understandable misstatement to WHNT.  He said contributors instead of contributions.  If Parker intended to mislead voters then he would not have issued a press release that contradicted his own statement.

However, the folks at Left in Alabama have previously proven that they know how to access the FEC website and I would assume that at least one of them can use Excel.  It should have been plainly obvious to them that Griffith has received about half of his money from outside the state.  They intentionally ignored this fact.  Maybe they just thought it was a coincidence that the 49% figure representing out of state contributions just happened to be the same percentage that Parker cited.  I would categorize it as a sin of willful omission on their part.  Not quite a lie, but dangerously close.

Kudos to Dan for also looking into the numbers.

*** Wayne Parker Press Release ***

JUDGED BY THE COMPANY THAT YOU KEEP

Wayne Parker raises nearly 88% of his funds from individuals while Parker Griffith raises 45% of his funds from PAC contributions and liberal Democrat Leadership

Huntsville, AL - According to the latest FEC reports released July 15th, only 36% of the money raised so far by Parker Griffith in his congressional bid has been raised in North Alabama. An additional 15% came from other parts of the state, while a full 49% of Griffith’s campaign funds have come from outside the state of Alabama.

Griffith has raised over $25,000 in the Chicago area alone, far outpacing what he has raised in Scottsboro, Decatur, Athens and the Shoals area combined. Griffith reported raising more money from Detroit, Michigan than Decatur, Alabama.

Griffith received nearly 45% of his campaign contributions from PAC’s; this is in contrast to opponent Wayne Parker, who has raised 88% of his funds from individuals.

“The overwhelming majority of Wayne’s support has come from individuals right here in North Alabama who care about this district,” said Parker for Congress Campaign Manager, Neil Forbes. “When you see Griffith raising so much money from PAC’s, from outside Alabama, and from the most liberal leaders in Congress*, it makes you wonder who he would represent in Congress,” Forbes continued.

###

· On June 12, 2008, Parker Griffith received a $5000 from National Leadership PAC (Charlie Rangel’s Leadership PAC) and $2000 from Charlie Rangel for Congress.

· On May 31st, 2008, Parker Griffith received $10,000 from Our Common Values PAC (Rahm Emamuel’s Leadership PAC) and on June 27th, he received $2,000 from Rahm Emanuel for Congress.

From Politico, Bob Dole unloads on McClellan:

“There are miserable creatures like you in every administration who don’t have the guts to speak up or quit if there are disagreements with the boss or colleagues…”

“No, your type soaks up the benefits of power, revels in the limelight for years, then quits, and spurred on by greed, cashes in with a scathing critique.” 

“In my nearly 36 years of public service I’ve known of a few like you…”

“No doubt you will ‘clean up’ as the liberal anti-Bush press will promote your belated concerns with wild enthusiasm. When the money starts rolling in you should donate it to a worthy cause, something like, ‘Biting The Hand That Fed Me.’ Another thought is to weasel your way back into the White House if a Democrat is elected. That would provide a good set up for a second book deal in a few years.”

“…because if all these awful things were happening, and perhaps some may have been, you should have spoken up publicly like a man, or quit your cushy, high profile job.”

“That would have taken integrity and courage but then you would have had credibility and your complaints could have been aired objectively…”

“You’re a hot ticket now but don’t you, deep down, feel like a total ingrate?”

“BOB DOLE”

Nuff said.

Note: The following is a letter sent to me from two tireless local FairTax volunteers.

—

Wake Up America and Smell the FairTax!

Chuck and Mary Lynn Bailey

FairTax Volunteers

28 May 08

While following the Alabama 5^th Congressional District race for the past few weeks, something became crystal clear to the most casual observer: truth and facts don’t matter. What does matter is the cleverness of the written phrase, or the sound bite or the TV news clip. What I’m writing about is the treatment of the FairTax Plan by several of the candidates running for the 5^th District Congressional seat being vacated by Rep. Bud Cramer. If accuracy of journalism is still a requirement, then the media should strive to know and understand the issues in order to properly report on them. Reporting on an issue with lack of subject knowledge typically results in misinformation that does a disservice to newspaper readers, radio listeners and TV viewers; in this case, the voters of North Alabama.

First, the FairTax is the most researched bill ever submitted to the House Ways and Means and the Senate Finance Committees. Over $22 Million dollars in private funding have been spent to develop the plan known as The FairTax Act of 2007. The Plan was defined by Americans For Fair Taxation, which was formed in 1995 as a 501 (c) (4) nonprofit, nonpartisan, grassroots organization solely dedicated to replacing the current income tax system. It began as a research organization with the initial goal of finding out what the American people wanted in a tax system, what they felt was the best way for the government to collect revenue, and how taxation could be achieved in a way that most benefited the economy and the taxpayers. Many diverse groups of Americans participated in the extensive polling and focus group studies, and then a nonpartisan team of nationally renowned economists was commissioned to develop the FairTax Plan. They came from Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk, Boston and other well known universities and economic organizations, such as Arduin, Laffer & Moore Econometrics and the National Bureau of Economic Research. The organization is growing and has hundreds of thousands of members and volunteers nationwide. Its plan supports sound economic research, education of citizens and community leaders, and grassroots mobilization efforts.

FairTax FEATURES^*:

When the FairTax Bill (H.R. 25/S. 1025) is enacted as presently written, there will be no income tax whatsoever. Also written in the bill is that consumers will pay an inclusive 23% sales tax only on new products and services. That is, the FairTax is contained in the price of the product or service, not added on at the cash register. As a result, consumers will pay taxes when they want to, they will pay how much they want to and they will pay when they choose to spend their money on new products and services. There will be no more paperwork to do on April 15^th. The bill eliminates an agency that knows more about you than you are willing to tell your children and the same agency that knows how much you earn, how you earn it and how you spend it. It un-taxes those earning lower incomes and puts back into the economy the $400 billion - $500 billion wasted to collect $1.2 trillion in taxes.

INFLUENCE OF ECONOMIC FORCES:

Several huge economic forces drive us to the FairTax Plan. The economy is taxed at 18.5% for discretionary spending. At that rate, in 33 years, the entire income stream of the federal government will not be sufficient to pay the interest on the debt. That results in four economic forces that drive the FairTax:

1. Embedded taxes on products and services to the amount of 22%
2. Tax compliance costs
3. The underground economy
4. Offshore tax shelters

EMBEDDED TAXES:

22% of what we spend today is an embedded tax on everything we buy. Depending on the product, the tax ranges from 16% - 25% of the price. That is the cost added for income and payroll taxes, tax compliance, tax planning, etc., paid at each production step by the thousands of companies manufacturing products in the U.S.

TAX COMPLIANCE:

The Tax Foundation reports that filling out income tax forms costs $350 billion and time spent on those forms is typically 7 billion man-hours. Auditors and accounting firms report that $100 billion - $125 billion is spent yearly calculating tax implications of business decisions. The result is $450 billion - $475 billion to collect $1.2 trillion of income tax.

UNDERGROUND ECONOMY:

It is now known that the underground economy is $2 trillion - $3 trillion, resulting in a huge amount of income taxes on that money being lost. The more complex the code (presently 67,000 pages and growing), the easier it is to go underground. Enactment of the FairTax Plan (133 pages, double spaced paragraphs) will provide the method for taxing drug dealers, prostitutes and anyone else now escaping the income tax system. That is because the FairTax is collected on new products and services at the point of sale and everyone pays, no exemptions. The FairTax also goes a long way toward discouraging illegal immigrants from coming into our country to steal our Social Security and Medicare benefits while not paying into the system. They will have to pay the FairTax on everything they buy.

OFFSHORE TAX SHELTERS:

$12 trillion are deposited in offshore financial centers as tax shelters. These tax shelters consist of dollar dominated deposits: dollars to be safe, offshore to be secret, some of it legitimate and some of it illegal. At the same time, the total financial holdings of U.S. households are $16 trillion - $17 trillion. The $12 trillion sitting offshore “wants” to be in our economy, but can’t be, since the income tax would decimate its value. By eliminating the IRS code (the income tax) in accordance with the FairTax Plan, the United States will become the world’s largest tax haven. That means the $12 trillion will return to our country in months, according to Alan Greenspan.

THE FairTax, SOCIAL SECURITY AND WELFARE - BIG CHALLENGE:

As a part of the previous four economic forces, Social Security, Medicare and welfare must be addressed. Permanently fixing Social Security with the current payroll tax structure of workers paying for retirees will require the government to borrow $78 trillion to cover the cost. But, the total household wealth in U.S. today is about $58 trillion, which only covers 2/3 of the shortfall. Over the next 25 years, as the number of retirees increases by 100%, workers only increase by 15%. The present system can’t be fixed with payroll taxes, nor can it be sustained.

The FairTax fixes Social Security and Medicare in the short term. Of the 23 cents inclusive sales tax on new products and services, 15 cents will fund the government, 8 cents will be allocated to actual Social Security and Medicare trust funds. The tax base increases from 158 million income tax payers to 300 million FairTax payers at the point of sale. Also, the 50 million tourists visiting our country each year will pay the tax. Further, transitioning to the FairTax lifts the cap on the first $97,500 of income and changes to 100% of spending for everyone. The FairTax taxes wealth when it is spent, not income when it is earned.

THE FairTax PREBATE:

The FairTax is designed to totally un-tax lower income employees through a pre-tax rebate, or prebate. The prebate is based on the number of household members, not income, and will be implemented to totally un-tax each household up to the poverty level. It is a cash transfer to every legal household, rich or poor, in the form of a monthly check or electronic transfer to reimburse the taxes up to the poverty level set by Health and Human Services. The poverty level is defined as that spending necessary to buy essentials of life. Beyond poverty spending level, we’re all discretionary spenders and will pay the same consumption tax of 23%. However, the prebate makes the FairTax a progressive system, resulting in the effective tax (annual taxes paid divided by annual spending) being less than 23%. For example, a person spending at or below the poverty level has a 0.0 % effective tax rate, whereas someone spending at twice the poverty level has an effective tax rate of 11.5 %, at three times the poverty level, 15.3 % and so on.

To receive the prebate, each household will be required to verify that all members are legal residents and that each household member holds a legal social security number. To continue receiving the prebate, this information must be updated each year to reflect changes in status. This verification process is the only form required from individuals by the FairTax, but is not mandatory. If one wishes not to receive the prebate, no verification is required.

In 2005, the president’s tax reform commission scored several proposals for tax reform, including the FairTax. The commission reported that the FairTax was the only tax reform proposal out there that completely relieves the poor of the burden of paying federal taxes. What was being scored was the prebate explained above.

TAX EVASION:

One of the 5^th District candidates made the statement on WVNN’s Dale Jackson morning show yesterday that there will be more tax evasion under the FairTax, requiring additional personnel to police the system. He based his statement on a report done by the Brookings Institute. However, the Brookings report was based on a sales tax scheme devised by the Institute itself, not the FairTax Plan. Under the FairTax, two factors make evasion less likely: enforcement is reduced from 158,000 million income tax filers to approximately 25 million tax collecting retailers who receive ¼ of the tax receipts to offset collection and reporting costs, and the fact that it takes two to cheat the system: the retailer and the buyer. Fraud is dealt with in the plan. There is more evasion with the present income tax code because it is so convoluted and complex, thus allowing an individual to cheat the system and never be caught. The IRS estimates that its tax gap - the amount of taxes owed minus the amount collected - is around $311 billion in any given year. The same candidate also made other statements during WHNT’s debate concerning the FairTax being regressive. See “THE FairTax PREBATE” above. Based on the statements he has made about the FairTax, there is no reason to believe he is familiar with or has any actual knowledge of the FairTax Plan. He has been offered a tutorial by the writers, but has not accepted.

THE IMMORAL INCOME TAX:

The income tax manipulates behavior through a system of rewards and punishments and is not levied equally on all our citizens. The power inherent in this control is like a narcotic to politicians, leading to over 16,000 changes to the income tax code since it was “flattened” in 1986. The FairTax is just that - a fair tax - unlike the income tax that is rewritten twice a day on average to manipulate our behavior and grant benefits to some that it denies to others. As George Orwell put it, “…some animals are more equal than others.” The next time you hear a politician promise tax credits for laudatory behavior, remember that God gave us free will, but government doesn’t think we are ready to exercise it!

SUMMARY:

A new way of implementing taxes to cover the government’s operational, Social Security and Medicare costs is necessary. “Keeping the IRS in place will not fix the results of the four economic forces discussed in the previous paragraphs. Nibbling around the edges of the income tax code will not fix them. By enacting the FairTax we believe we can double the size of the economy in 16 - 18 years. The economy could grow enough to pay Medicare and Social Security costs. You’d double the monies which would be enough to pay those categories with non - inflationary economic growth, huge increases in exports, huge increases in capital investments and an economy that just couldn’t be slowed down. You can fix none of them with the income tax. You can fix all of them with the FairTax.”

To find out more about the FairTax, go to www.fairtax.org or find and study “The FairTax Book: Saying Goodbye to the Income Tax and the IRS” by Neal Boortz and Congressman John Linder, and “FairTax: the Truth. Answering the Critics” by Neal Boortz and Congressman John Linder, with Bob Woodall.

^*Discussion by Rep. John Linder (R-GA) at the American Solutions FairTax Workshop at the Iowa Caucus in Ames, Iowa, 11 August 08.

The Huntsville Times released their endorsements for judgeships and PSC president today.  Of interest to me was the concluding sentence:

Wednesday: the countywide half-cent sales tax for schools

I’m on pins and needles waiting to hear their opinion!

I’ve written ad nauseum on this issue over the past year and a half.  I’ll try to put together a summary post leading into the primary vote.  I’m sure the HSV Times eagerly anticipated push for the tax increase will motivate me.

Here’s a few background posts, though:

• Why I oppose the loophole sales tax increase
• More thoughts on the proposed Madison County sales tax increase
• Madison schools want tax money without strings
• Like I said - Huntsville doesn’t need the money

What is so amusing is that the sales tax was sold initially as an urgent fix - we just couldn’t wait.  Now it’s a full year and a half later, the tax still isn’t in place, and the sky hasn’t fallen.  If the supporters had just taken their time to put the wheels in motion to implement a focused property tax increase in unincorporated Madison County - something they said would take too long - they would have had their up or down vote on it by now!

There’s gonna be a new face at The Huntsville Times and it’s got a scruffy goatee. Welcome to Huntsville, Kevin Wendt.

My hope is that he’ll turn the paper around and get rid of the leftie bias and incurious reporting.  Huntsville needs a good newspaper, and deserves a better one than what we’ve got.  I know that many people have just stopped getting the paper, because of the stench of liberalism that permeates the Times.  In my own love-to-read family, we went from four full subscriptions to one weekend-only subscription, and think often of cancelling that.

Here’s the story of how Wendt became a journalist (must read):

Call it destiny or dumb luck, but the fact Kevin became a journalist at all can be traced to a chance meeting at Subway on freshman move-in day. He ran into Star sports editors Jason Schaumburg and Ryan Byrne. He and Jason had grown up together in Elgin. Even though Kevin was a chemistry major, Jason asked if he’d be interested in covering women’s soccer.

“Of course, I thought, ‘Hmmm. Women … soccer.’ So I started doing it. It was a good way to make some money. I didn’t have any when I went to college.”

Mercury News memo:

Kevin will be among the youngest newspaper editors in the country, and it’s no surprise to any of us. Since his arrival at the Mercury News in 2000 — wearing a degree from Northern Illinois University and a black eye delivered by some thugs he exposed in the campus newspaper — Kevin has shown an incredible aptitude for this business.

The Huntsville Times memo:

He has experience helping develop the newspaper’s convergence efforts between its newspaper and online operations. Among other stops in his career at the Mercury News has been executive news editor, assistant business editor covering internet/technology companies as well as the sale of the former parent company, Knight Ridder, and news design director, responsible for the overall visual report for news, local, business and sports sections.

The Society for News Design published an Interview with Kevin Wendt:

I was just really impressed by the Huntsville area, and I was really enthused by some of the things I saw the paper doing and imagining the potential to grow in print and online…  my age (30) allows me to not accept “Well, that’s how we’ve always done it” as an answer to any question…

Visually, you just look at the sophistication of design and packaging these days (insert Apple reference here), and producing a product that feels authoritative — both in print and online! — is so important. And that’s not just design. Our stories must be clear and concise, and written with an authoritative voice. We must package our news in the most user-friendly way possible…

Journalism and newspapers are too important, and there are too many talented people still affiliated with both, for us not to create a sustainable business model that supports what we do.

John Hinderaker of the Powerline blog has a great column in the Weekly Standard about Jill Simpson, Don Siegelman’s supposed secret spy.  Nothing new in the column, just a good synopsis of Simpson’s wildly dubious story.

In order to better understand the views of each of the eight candidates vying to be their party’s nominee for the AL-05 congressional seat the authors of Flashpoint have created a candidate questionnaire. The questions were designed to generally fit within the top ten “issues of importance” in the congressional races according to Rasmussen polling data, although a few local and general questions were added.

The questionnaires were sent to each candidate with a publicly available email address last night and will be delivered to the remaining few this morning. We have asked that responses be returned no later than 16 May. They will be posted on the site for all to read.

So, here’s the list:

General

1. As a freshman legislator you may be limited in the amount of legislation you can personally champion. Please list two or three specific bills that are already pending or that you would introduce that you would personally fight for in order to secure their passage.

2. NASA’s annual budget is approximately one half of one percent of the total federal budget. Do you believe this is adequate to meet the challenges they have been issued to return to the moon and eventually send a manned vehicle to Mars? There appears to be a looming gap between launch requirements and launch asset availability - how would you address this issue? Should their mission and/or funding be altered in any way?

3. Please provide a description of what you feel would be appropriate Constitutional gun restrictions.

4. What makes you the best prepared candidate to represent the interests of Redstone Arsenal?

Economy

5. What is the role of the federal government in the Economy?

6. During campaigns candidates are eager to talk about programs they want to create or expand, but something has to give. Would you be willing to eliminate or curtail any programs and/or raise taxes to address budget problems? Please provide specifics.

7. What is your position on free trade? How would you vote on the Colombia Free Trade Agreement? Do you support continuing NAFTA?

Government Ethics & Corruption

8. What efforts would you make to increase the public’s trust in government?

9. Would you pledge to abstain from seeking or accepting earmarks as a member of Congress? Note: According to Citizens Against Government Waste there were five senators and ten representatives who received no earmarks in FY2008.

Social Security

10. What are your thoughts on Social Security? Is it in trouble, if so, how do you propose to fix it?

National Security/War on Terror

11. What country or group do you believe poses the greatest threat to the United States? What actions would you take to secure our safety from this particular threat?

Education

12. Does the country need more or less involvement from the federal government in educating our children? Do you support market based school choice programs such as vouchers or tax credits?

Health Care

13. What responsibility does the federal government have for health care? What are your thoughts on addressing the issue?

Iraq

14. What is your position on the Iraq War? Are we winning? When should we leave?

Taxes

15. What specific measures would you support to change our federal tax code?

Immigration

16. What should the federal government do about immigration? What impact have illegal immigrants had on Alabama?

Abortion & Other Social Issues

17. Which term best describes you: pro-life or pro-choice?

18. Would you address the issue of human trafficking and slavery in the US and worldwide?

19. Would you support an amendment to the Constitution defining marriage as being between one man and one woman?

Energy

20. What should the federal government do, if anything, to decrease fuel prices and what should the government do to develop and promote sustainable alternative energy sources?

Softball

21. Are there any questions you wish we had asked? Go ahead and answer it.

George Will has some sage analysis of how the presidential candidates would deal with the mortgage crisis.

With the command-and-control propensity of contemporary liberalism, Clinton predictably advocates a policy that has a record, running from Roman times to the present, that is unblemished by success. It is the policy of price controls: Her proposed five-year freeze on interest rates would be a control on the price of money.

Liberals do love price controls.

The market, which bewilders and annoys liberals by correcting excesses without the supervision of liberals, is doing that as housing prices fall far enough to stimulate demand.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

In fact, they’re getting more expensive.

A worldwide hops shortage will make stouts, ales and other specialty microbrews more pricy in coming months.

A triple whammy of bad weather in Europe, an increase in the price of barley and a decrease in hops production in the U.S. has lead to a price increase of 20 percent for the most widely grown varieties, to 80 percent for specialty hops. The shortage is particularly hitting microbreweries, since they use more hops than major brewers.

Somewhat ironically the very next story on NPR this morning was a story about how beer costs less than water in Britain and that has some teetotalers’ panties in a wad.

Think about this.  Water is, well, just water.  Water is one of many ingredients used to make beer.  Those ingredients cost money.  The processing of the beer costs money.  If the finished product costs less than a comparable volume of consumer quality water then what does that say about the quality of the water used to make the beer?  Or… What does that say about the price premium placed on bottled water due to effective marketing?

… somewhere else.  Like Wisconsin.

The land of cheese is on the precipice of passing a socialized health care plan for all residents under the age of 65.  I guess the older folks are covered by Mother Washington.  Their plan will initially result in a tax increase of $510 per month for every worker and could eat up about 20% of family incomes.  But they will have a 16 person panel charged with lording over the health of an entire state.

Since Wisconsin is lucky enough to be run by progressives socialists they will impose a hefty portion of the new taxes on businesses.  How nice of them!  Good thing they aren’t taxing regular people.  Those businesses will respond in a number of predictable ways: passing costs on to consumers (real people), depressing profits of owners (real people), or maybe simply relocating out of state (leaving real people unemployed).  Those newly employed people will continue to get their free health care - which will be provided by the shrinking number of actual workers who will begin to carry an even larger tax burden.  Think of it this way, the state of Wisconsin is putting every business within its borders at a nearly 15% cost disadvantage compared to businesses in other states.  And you thought NAFTA was going to make a big sucking sound.

John Stossel pretty much sums up my feelings on the matter:

America needs “Healthy Wisconsin.” The fall of the Soviet Union deprived us of the biggest example of how socialism works. We need laboratories of failure to demonstrate what socialism is like. All we have now is Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, the U.S. Post Office, and state motor-vehicle departments.

It’s not enough. Wisconsin can show the other 49 states what “universal” coverage is like.

Let’s just hop they can crash and burn before such onerous mandates get imposed on the country at large.  Maybe when they encounter a financial crisis as they become a mecca for the infirmed and unemployable, lose businesses, and tax their residents to death Americans will see the folly of socialism.