....and who pays it.
Posted on 09/03/2006 5:18:40 AM PDT by Man50D
Abolish the federal income tax!
No more taxes on savings and investments!
A "Fair Tax" can completely fund the federal government, Social Security and Medicare!
You control how much you spend!
So what are we waiting for?
You, the taxpayers of America burdened with an income tax that is costly, wasteful and sinking America into inevitable bankruptcy. All current forms of federal taxation would end! You would keep 100 percent of your paycheck. You control how you spend your paycheck. It's your money. You make the decisions as to how you want to spend your money.
The Fair Tax would create more jobs and give the USA a level playing field when selling overseas. United States Senator John Linder (R-Georgia) is sponsoring the "Fair Tax Act of 2005." If enacted by Congress, it would accomplish all of the above. Simple. Easy. And affordable.
It's the best way to downsize government without disrupting the economy.
To join the "Fair Tax" movement in America, just sign the "Economic Freedom & Fairness" Petition supporting forward-thinking solutions. Go to www.grassfire.net and liberate the working class of taxpayers. Grassfire is trying to give the working class the same kind of freedom America's founders gave to those who joined the American Revolution in 1776 with the "Declaration of Independence." We won the Revolutionary War, but have lost our country since the 16th Amendment (income tax) became "Law" in 1913.
(Excerpt) Read more at bayshorenews.com ...
....and who pays it.
The tax system in Hong Kong is even better...
I thought the picture was funny as hell... and if the whiner(s) could even spell the word farm, they likely would have seen the same thing in real life - or worse...
It certainly wasn't the big deal they want to make of it. But since that is about the only thing they have is to make a mountain out of a molehill in an attempt to discredit me personally, its not a surprise that they keep coming back to it.
I think that the personal attack posts that they spam FR with on a daily basis are 100x worse than a silly picture.
If you take $100 from your savings account and deposit into your checking account, how will you pay your savings account back?!"he he he" If you're using that as an example for government taxing wages with a new tax you're too stupid for words.
"he he he" You left out the part where they collect the additional funds to pay the other account back with a NEW tax.
....crickets chirping....
must be a major re-programming event going on...
Before that it was "what's your number"?. Remember that one where they tried to take 5% per stage and make it 25% at retail? (one idiot still "can't fathom" it isn't possible).
The only "stage" they have is the one on which they put the dancing fools, and in front of which stand thousands of duped and adoring morons.
Di: I am getting confusing messages on our approach to Calls for Action. What should we be doing? When is it appropriate to write or e-mail?
Leo Linbeck: We have recently had a misstep in the Call for Action and I’ll take responsibility for that because it was unclear because of a breakdown in communication as to what ought to be done in the way of communicating with the Speaker. The Speaker is a supporter of the FairTax and is not an impediment to its advancement and for us to have had a Call to Action at that particular time was a misuse of that activity and, as I said, it’s my responsibility that that was undertaken at a time I knew it should not be but had not communicated that to our communications directors and other people involved in the Call to Action.
Basically the Call to Action will only be used when there is a specific objective in mind that we wish to achieve and that we can measure the effectiveness of the Call to Action in achieving that objective. We want to use it sparingly because there is a limit to how effectively it can be used if we are accused of crying wolf and do it just for the joy in being a part of a Call to Action.
My experience in this regard is that when we use it it’s got to be very meaningful. It’s got be serious and it’s got to have a very specific objective to be achieved. And in the future you can rely on us to use those criteria before we have a Call to Action. The confusion is understood. I regret the confusion but it was not by virtue of any of the missteps at the grassroots level; it was my misstep.
Leo Linbeck: The short answer to that is when we have the critical mass of membership; when we have 3,000 members in all 435 congressional districts and 10,000 members in the districts in which there is a member of the Ways and Means Committee we will then be in a position to support the action necessary to move the bill through Congress.
Right now we are reasonably short of that goal and it would be a perhaps ill time to ask the leadership in the House to bring it before the Ways and Means Committee because we cannot count the votes on the Ways and Means Committee yet to pass it out of the committee, so it would be a futile exercise and, in my judgment, misdirected to ask that it be put before the Ways and Means Committee and voted out now.
We have to have that critical mass of support at the grassroots level to make known to the Members of Congress that their constituents want this bill to pass, and so until we have that number I think it would be inappropriate and ill advised to insist or ask or in any way put pressure to move it through the Ways and Means Committee, and the same is true obviously in the Senate on the Finance Committee.
Now having said that, we intend to always be available and make known the position of the FairTax any time there is a hearing; we will either try to be a part of that hearing or we will make press releases or have press conferences or otherwise communicate our position where the product of that hearing is contrary to the interest of passage of the FairTax. But that’s quite different than having a concerted effort to pass the FairTax out of the Ways and Means Committee and out of the House before we have the 435 congressional districts up to the full level of critical mass.
I'm not sure if that was FT or some kind of a pseudo-religious Amway sales meeting....
Leo Linbeck:
The most definitive investigation of that issue is still Dale Jorgenson’s research. Although he is not a supporter of the FairTax, he does defend his original research and if you will refer to the Frequently Asked Questions and the research on the Web site you will find that he has broken this down by industry and has given his opinion, his investigatory opinion of what the impact will be on the elimination of the income tax from the cost of producer prices by industry. What it will be on an individual retailer basis in a specific location is very difficult to predict because there are so many variables at work in determining the supply/demand equation and the competitive environment in each individual location. But across the board in a macroeconomic sense, it is my opinion that there will be virtually no upward pressure on prices after the imposition of the FairTax and the elimination of the income tax and it will help, not only at the producer price level, but that translates into an enormous relief of uncompetitive cost structure for our exporters. People like Caterpillar and Boeing, Texas Instruments – people who manufacture products in this country for export – will have relieved from those products the burden of the income tax system that they currently must carry. A good way to look at this is it doesn’t create an advantage for the domestic content product but it removes the impediment that is currently placed on the domestic content product to be competitive internationally. As Denis Calabrese stated and I think most effectively, “You have two runners in a race, one domestic content and the other foreign content. The domestic content in that race is carrying an extra 30 pounds. Under the FairTax they remove that 30-pound weight and both runners are running on the same field of play.” So it is fair. It is even handed. It is not preferential for imports and I believe it will greatly stimulate the creation of domestic content jobsHe didn't answer the question, but that's their story (Jorgenson) and they're sticking to it.
Leo Linbeck:
Well there’s really nothing we can do about the local sales tax through the federal FairTax. We are of the view that the FairTax at the end of the day will not have a significant upward pressure on prices. We believe that there will be a lowering of prices at the producer level in a significant amount and significant enough such that the end result of pricing will not require the Fed to accommodate and that the retail price level will be virtually the same as it is under the current tax system, monetary policy being a constant. But having said that, at the state level unless they reform their state level tax system and in those 45 states that have a sales tax that means that they will have to reform it in a manner that more closely aligns with the base of the federal system and embraces the prebate system as part of its structure and eliminates from its terms taxing business-to-business transactions. In the absence of those kinds of reforms it is my view that the current sales tax system at the state level will, in fact, be an add-on to the federal level. But at the end of the day that is not a net negative impact from where they are today in terms of their state taxes, it’s a virtual push. But I believe that the prospects are very real that upon enactment.That sounds like there's been talk of inflation fears if prices aren't constant...We know they couldn't possibly be constant with pre Fairtax prices.
LINBECK: At the practical level it would create so much more power in the hands of the individual wage earner than they presently have. If you’re fortunate enough to live off of dividends or interest, you have a measure of control – even though you pay taxes – you decide through the manner in which you operate, to pay it quarterly. You get everything you earn in that dividend or in that interest payment. The wage earner doesn’t. They work 8 to 5 or 8 to 4:30 and they get a paycheck that’s been diluted at least 30 percent, probably 37 percent, and they have to make all of their plans around that net.
Under the FairTax, they take home everything they earn, whatever that is. I can’t say whether they will earn more or less – I don’t know – under the FairTax than they earn now in gross pay because that’s a market function. I suspect some will earn more because their skills, and knowledge, and experience are in shorter supply than others. And to that extent they will earn more than those that have less. But whatever it is they earn, they will get it all. And I think that’s a very empowering phenomena, and I think it changes the context in which they can manage their life. And I think that’s very positive. Again, it puts them on the same playing field as all other citizens, regardless of their source of income. And I think that would be very positive as well.
There are many others. The growth of the economy will accelerate. It will probably double what it is now or more. Interest rates come down, which drives a lot of that growth. It drives home building, it drives the purchase of large consumer durables. It would stimulate exports, which in turn creates more domestic jobs, which in turn creates more opportunity for growth in all sectors of the economy. It’s not perfect, but I believe it to be the optimum system.
I know we’re all seeking a silver bullet by which, in one transformational act, we can get a huge amount of money or bodies – members behind the FairTax – by persuading someone at the national level to endorse it. Our view is that that’s most likely to occur if they hear from their own constituents, their own membership, local members of the United Auto Workers, local unions of the machinists – your local members of the machinist’s union – local unions of the carpenters, the ironworkers, the bricklayers. When they hear from the people that pay dues to them that they are interested in and are seeking the support of their local, their regional, their state unions it is much more likely that those unions will come to see the value of being involved with us in the passage of the FairTax. We’ve had some indication of support in that regard. We’re encouraged by it.
We’ve had meetings with local unions of the United Auto Workers in the Kansas/Missouri area, district councils of the building trades unions in a number of states, and we’ve had a very, very good reception in every one of those instances by the people with whom we met and from that good reception we’re encouraged that the outcome will be positive.
As to trade associations, the same approach applies. They all have members. They are relying on their membership to pay the dues that support the staff that they maintain in Washington. We’re persuaded that you’re not going to change the staff in Washington in an ex parte manner. They will only change, they will only support the FairTax when they hear from their membership that it is something their membership expects. We’re working from the bottom up with people like home builders, with realtors, other trade association members in order to use the grassroots concept in building the support from the bottom up with those kinds of organizations.
I would call attention in particular to how effectively the Farm Bureau effort has been organized. John Collett in Kansas City and his cohorts have done a splendid job in conceptually organizing and then executing on the plan that they developed, a means by which we could propagate the FairTax around and through the entire Farm Bureau organization.
I learned recently that we have 61 volunteers in 34 states working on the distribution and dissemination of FairTax information to the Farm Bureau organization down to the county level. And I think that’s an example of what can be done.
Tom Wright has the laboring oar in organizing an effort with the AARP which, although it may be different in the type of organization that is needed, is of the same kind in trying to influence an organization from the grass roots up in support of the FairTax.
Di: How can we present the FairTax as a bipartisan concern when the first thing people see on the Web site is Republican sponsors?
Leo Linbeck: It gets back to the grass roots again. I hate to, in a sense, to keep coming back to that but that is in fact the core strength of this effort. The reason that there are no Democratic co-sponsors on the current bill as opposed to when it was originally introduced is that the leadership in the House has put out a dictum to the members on the Democratic side that they are not to be co-sponsors.
snip
In my opinion, the leadership of the Democratic party in the House is making a mistake because it’s been observed by many people, including some of the advisors to the Democratic party, that they’re making a mistake by not embracing the FairTax since it is most supportive of and helpful to the people who work for wages by virtue of the fact that it eliminates the payroll tax, which is the largest tax most wage earners pay and for the first time provides an opportunity for the person who works for wages to get their whole paycheck – whatever their earnings are they’re able to receive that in their take-home pay.
So I don’t think it is of any value, at least I’ve not found it to be of any value, and I’ve met with Nancy Pelosi on two or three occasions. I know her personally, socially and I got nowhere because it is the party line in the House that caused Collin Peterson to get off the bill. There have been others who were inclined to get on it from the group lovingly called the Blue Dog Democrats but they have been dissuaded from doing so by the discipline that’s imposed by the minority leader in the House.
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