Recommended reading: Bill Whittle Proud of the GOP, at NRO.
Whittle is a great, moving, writer. I was blessed to find his work some years ago. For some of the best essays on the Internet, here’s Whittle’s website, plus an example essay - Freedom.
WOW!
I just watched Sarah Palin’s speech - she is an absolutely wonderful choice for Vice President. She is right on issues, she is a great speecher, and she exudes confidence. She also has more executive experience in her own right than does Obama…
I’ll observe that Palin used a phrase to describe her will to serve: “A Servant’s Heart”. Our own Wayne Parker refers to the same phrase in his speeches. The phrase is from Matthew 23:11-12.
The greatest among you will be your servant. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
Compare that to the ‘Exalted One’…
UPDATE: Thanks for the link C-SPAN. Note that I combined the words “speech” and “speaker” to coin the word “speecher”; it’s supposed to be humor…
The [Jefferson County] commission faces a 5 p.m. deadline today to extend another debt payment to its Wall Street creditors to restructure its $3.2 billion sewer debt or default.
If the county reneges, it would be the largest municipal bond default in U.S. history, eclipsing the Washington Public Power Supply System’s default on $2.25 billion in revenue bonds in 1983.
The article linked above highlights a report that offers dire predictions for the state:
But a report by a New Jersey company says a default would have “long-lasting negative consequences” for the state and its counties, cities and school districts. It also said it would harm Alabama’s “general business climate reputation.”
The report was recently prepared by Lamont Financial Services Corp. for one of the bond insurers in the Jefferson County case.
I’m not saying the bankruptcy will have no effect on other parts of the state (I don’t pretend to know about high finance), but I do question the motive of the report. It was paid for by a company that stands to lose a lot of money if Jeff Co defaults. They have considerable motivation to encourage the state to bail out the clowns around The Ham. A doomsday report about the impact on the state might do just that.
David Prather chimed in with a column comparing the relatively minor Huntsville metro jail fiasco with the colossal failure 90 miles to our south. I always say that Birmingham (and Jeff Co) is the best thing that ever happened to Huntsville politicos. B’ham is teeming with screwball politicians, which always make Huntsville’s politicians seem stately and wise by comparison. I wonder how many times Loretta Spencer and company have thanked a higher power for people like Larry Langford. I hardly think, though, that a massive financial disaster in a nearby area, especially one as habitually problematic as Jeff Co, should in any way diminish the magnitude of our own mess.
Tommy Battle needs to send heartfelt “thank you” notes to Jackie Reed and Michael Polemeni. Reed and Polemeni were absolute jokes as candidates with no business running for mayor, but their paltry combined vote total of 2.24% was enough to force a runoff between incumbent Loretta Spencer and challenger Tommy Battle.
With 54 of 55 precincts reporting Spencer won 14,871 votes (49.52%) while Battle won 14,486 votes (48.24%) out of a total of 30,030 votes cast. (I’ll update the numbers when all precincts are in.)
Spencer had to win in a runoff four years ago against Parker Griffith, although that general election featured three legitimate candidates. She easily dispatched Griffith in that runoff. However, I think this runoff presents a different dynamic.
With both candidates soaking up nearly all the votes there isn’t a significant chunk of existing voters for them to court. Personally, I don’t think Spencer took Battle’s challenge terribly seriously. She struck me as a candidate who was annoyed that she had to take time out of her busy schedule to convince voters she needs to keep her job. Will the closely pitched race focus her attention more sharply on winning? As for Battle, the close race should only whet his appetite and demonstrate that Spencer is vulnerable to educational (a.k.a. attack) ads that highlight some of the problems the city has recently faced. Keep hitting her on the metro jail boondoggle and start pointing out the rising crime rates.
A quick look at the unofficial precinct level results revealed a stark contrast in which candidate won in which portion of the city. Spencer won nearly all of the south and southeast Huntsville precincts, often by double digits. Battle won in the north and west, also often by double digits. Actually, my south Huntsville precinct was one of the few (if not the only one) to favor Battle. Some examples:
What do the numbers mean? Do they reflect a racial, economic, or geographic divide? My guess is the latter two. I can’t imagine that race played a factor in selecting between a white man and white woman. As Huntsville has flourished there is no doubt that some of the poorer areas have not kept pace. Schools languish. Roads projects are few and slowly completed. Crime is rising.
One of the key examples is the overpass progress on the Parkway, since it allows for a direct comparison. The north Parkway overpass project, which serves the poorer northern part of the city, has sat virtually dormant for longer than I can remember. Meanwhile, the south Parkway overpass, which serves the more affluent south, has progressed steadily, albeit slowly. I believe that the northern project was initiated first and yet all that has been accomplished is the construction of the service roads. In the south, overpass ramps are up and the beams for the overpasses themselves are in place. Why is that? Is it a city or state decision? Either way it certainly appears like the more affluent portion of the city gets preferential treatment. I bet that, and other such perceptions of favoritism, is behind Battle’s geographic support base.
The runoff election will take place on October 7th.
Talk about a gift for Republicans.
It wasn’t too long ago that Biden was calling Obama “clean” and “articulate,” words that many interpreted as being uncouth in reference to a black man.
I haven’t had a chance to read/watch the pundits’ analysis of the decision, so here’s my thoughts. Obama knew that the Russian invasion of Georgia exposed a glaring weakness, namely his extreme inexperience on matters of foreign policy. In addition to being a windbag and a gaffe machine Biden is respected for his foreign policy credentials. So, despite the overall weakness of Biden as a VP choice Obama’s hand was forced. He simply couldn’t risk proceeding through the general election campaign with another untested individual rounding out his ticket. Any additional world unrest would have only served as a nail in his electoral coffin.
One pecularity is that Obama went with a fellow senator. Voters have long tended to cast their ballots in favor of former governors instead of legislators for president since they actually have some executive experience. I’m sure Obama would have rather chosen someone who had actualy run something (anything!), but he was in the mode of trying to cover one of his many glaring weaknesses and he ultimately had to pick one even it left others untended.
For quite some time now the Alabama online community has been regaled by a self proclaimed journalist named Glynn Wilson who runs the Locust Fork propaganda site. Glynn claims to be the most credentialed journalist in Alabama. Control your laughter.
I actually find him amusing because he is a total huckster who is unbelievably full of himself. I toy around with him every now and then, but the truth is that I enjoy having Glynn around. As a proponent of left wing causes I think Glynn does more to help out my side than I ever could.
Typically Glynn is content to berate anyone who comments on his site that dares to disagree with his bizarre conspiracy theories. That’s fine, it’s his site after all. Occasionally he ventures out to other blogs, typically so that he can boast about his own phony credentials, whine about anonymous commenters (even though he never uses his own name - ironic isn’t it), and try to direct traffic to his tinfoil hat site.
Lately things have escalated a bit, with someone - presumably Glynn - becoming considerably more hostile. Now I don’t have a problem with Glynn coming here and leaving a comment under his own name. He can say what he wants and I will respond in kind with all due respect. However, in the absence of conclusive proof that it is in fact Glynn leaving the comments I would be remiss to respond with comparable tenacity. The problem I see is that Glynn’s bullying style is rote. So much so that anyone could emulate it without much effort. What I don’t want to have happen is for an outside agitator (I’ve gotten a number of emails over the months from people who think Glynn is a hack) to stoke a flame war. That isn’t to say that I’m not 95% certain this is the real Glynn wrapped up in his own expansive ego, but you never know.
I’ve only had to ban one person from my site in over two years - and that was for a mixture of anti-semitic statements and personal attacks. I don’t want to ban Glynn, but I can’t allow this probable Glynn to continue in good conscience. I thought it was a bit of a joke when Daily Dixie added this policy just before Dan pulled down the site, but I think it may be a good idea. So, my new unofficial policy is that only the real Glynn Wilson can leave comments and only with verifiable contact info. Any and all comments from the real Glynn are welcome here. I would first like to see a concise list of his “credentials” that qualify as the most in the state.
Earmarks. Pork. Call them what you wish. I call them our nation’s fiscal cancer.
Earmarks are insignificant as a dollar amount in relation to our total federal spending (entitlement programs are the lion’s share). However, earmarks are what the military calls a “force multiplier.” They act to dramatically increase federal spending far beyond their own cost. How, you ask?
When presented with a bloated spending bill many legislators will refuse to support it. But when a pork project (or multiple pork projects) for their district is inserted into the bill their opposition softens and they may switch to support. This clearly makes no sense because the total amount of money to be spent is now higher than the previous amount that was objectionable. Voila! Total spending goes out of control as politicians vote in favor of massive spending bills for a pittance of local money.
Politicians do this because they sincerely believe that pork will help them get reelected. This is where you come in. Every voter needs to recognize that all of those pork projects and structures bearing the names of elected officials are nothing more than taxpayer funded campaign material. When you see a picture of a smiling politician presenting a community grant in the paper you need to think about the reason he/she is smiling. He is smiling because he knows that every sucker voter seeing that picture paid for that advertisement. Some recent polling indicates that voters may be getting wise to this racket, but that message needs to be clearly articulated to the elected officials.
Another dangerous aspect of pork spending is that it can be a source of corruption. The way that the government is supposed to spend money is that Congress authorizes the expenditure of funds. Career professionals, not politicians, in the Executive Branch dispassionately determine specifically how that money should be spent to best achieve the nation’s objectives. There is considerable oversight into this process to try to prevent corruption. For earmarks, though, there is considerably less oversight, which has led to numerous cases of alleged and actual corruption over the years - most recently Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska. Legislators are able to quietly, covertly tuck earmarks into bills without even subjecting them to the consideration of the full legislative body, much less the public.
The hidden nature of earmarks creates a fertile breeding ground for legislators to provide favors for campaign contributors, friends, family, and, of course, themselves. Often it is extremely difficult to find a smoking gun that defines a quid pro quo transaction. In the case of Ted Stevens he hasn’t been charged with any quid pro quo (yet), he’s only been charged with insufficient disclosure of gifts. Occasionally a legislator is as sloppy as Duke Cunningham was and leaves a concrete trail of their malfeasance. All too often we are only able to marvel at the extent to which big contributors “just happen” to get huge chunks of earmarked money. Funny how that works out.
Even if there isn’t a whiff of ethical conflicts surrounding an earmark it still likely to be wasted money. Again, revisit the way money is supposed to get spent in the government. Career professionals - people who dedicate their working lives to studying focused issues - are supposed to decide how to best spend the limited taxpayer resources that they receive. Legislators do not have the specialized training (or the time) necessary to make informed decisions about, for example, where bridges should be built or which weapons our military truly needs. Earmarks result in inefficient spending. Period.
Nationally, the topic of earmarks has exposed a fracture in the Republican Party (see below for an excerpt of this column). The party must choose from the likes of Ted Stevens and Richard Shelby, both unabashed porkers, and Tom Coburn and Jim DeMint, both unapologetic fiscal conservatives. I think the correct choice couldn’t be clearer. The porkers helped to grow government under Republican control of both Congress and the White House despite pretending to be fiscal conservatives. Stark fact: as of 2006 (when the GOP lost Congress) the Bush administration grew government more than either Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter. The Republican Party MUST choose to follow the path of true fiscal restraint - to include substantial earmark reform or outright elimination - or it faces the very real possibility of officially allowing the Democrats become the party of small government (as ridiculous as that might sound).
From the aforementioned Wall Street Journal column:
The Republican Party is facing what Ronald Reagan called “a time for choosing.” A real argument is raging over how much it should turn its back on the bad habits that cost it control of Congress in 2006.
…
Mr. Coburn notes that many members feel compelled to vote for bloated spending bills, fearing their local projects will be stripped out.
…
One reason Congress now has even lower approval numbers than in 2006 is the failure of Democrats to make good on their vow to clean up the earmark process. A “moratorium” on earmarks has been quietly set aside; and the Congressional Research Service has been directed by Congressional leaders to no longer respond to requests from members on the size, number or background of earmarks. “Democrats claim the earmarks will now be transparent, but they’re taking away the very data that lets us know what’s really happening,” says South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint. Democratic earmark reform, concludes Mr. Coburn, “not only failed to drain the swamp, but gave the alligators new rights.”
…
They may not like it, but Mr. Coburn is showing Republicans how the GOP can return to its small government roots. Consider Ronald Reagan, who in 1987 vetoed a highway bill because it had a mere 121 earmarks in it.
Reagan quoted a letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote to James Madison in 1796, warning that allowing Congress to spend federal money for local projects would set off “a scene of scramble among the members (for) who can get the most money wasted in their State, and they will always get most who are meanest.” Reagan didn’t think that represented good government or good politics. Republicans today should heed his warning.
One of the bright spots of having John McCain as the party’s nominee is that he is a proven fiscal conservative with a track record as a pork buster. Republicans can cite numerous reasons why they aren’t excited about McCain for one issue or another, but when it comes to respect for the taxpayer’s money he has few peers. Barack Obama has not shown anywhere near the same inhibition when it comes to spending our money on pet projects.
In Alabama’s 5th Congressional District the Republican nominee, Wayne Parker, supports a one year moratorium on earmarks. He recognizes the corrupting effect of earmarks (he discusses earmark reform under the “Ethics in Government” category), although he stops short of pledging to abstain from earmarks. On the Democrat side Parker Griffith has already staked out his position while serving as a state senator. Just a couple of weeks ago he put our tax dollars to work, presenting a $5,000 state check to a local organization. Congratulations to all of us for buying him some complimentary press coverage, as we have done many times in the past.
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 5th 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 5th 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 15th. 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:
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 5th 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.
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