To the Point!
Posted on 04/13/2008 6:53:40 AM PDT by Man50D
HOUSTON, April 8, 2008 --The following release was issued today by Ken Hoagland, National Communications Director of FairTax.org:
To stimulate consumer spending this year America will essentially borrow money from China and other lender nations and provide rebate checks to our taxpayers. Astoundingly, however, just obeying our almost indecipherable 67,500 pages of tax regulations will cost about $100 billion more in tax preparation costs than the cost of the rebates. Why? The income tax system bedevils American taxpayers and damages the national economy but the tax code also serves the political, profit and power motives of a small group of politicians, academicians and lobbyists.
The income tax is big business in Washington. More than half of all Washington lobby expenditures in any given year are devoted to winning tax code breaks. While Republicans and Democrats disagree on almost everything else, rewarding favored constituents, punishing political opponents and affecting citizen behavior through the tax code is pursued with equal vigor on both sides of the aisle in Congress. The process has created a complex and destructive mess.
Warren Buffet and other American millionaires and billionaires will pay a lower tax rate again this year than their secretaries. If you are married, you will pay higher taxes than two people living together. If you continue working while collecting Social Security, your benefits will be taxed. If you are an American business, "embedded" income and payroll tax costs will account for as much as 20 percent of the price of your goods and services. These costs and the highest corporate tax rate in the world make American products far less competitive both here and abroad. Our income tax system has actually helped drive more than $12 trillion of American wealth offshore in recent years.
But if you happen to find a job on the House Ways and Means Committee, the Senate Finance Committee or the Joint Committee on Taxation as either a staffer or, better yet, an elected representative, you have a bright future with the tax code. Seven figure signing bonuses are not unheard of when "K St." tax lobby firms are looking for talent and connections. Is it any wonder that taxpayers hear frequent promises that "something must be done" but that the tax code only gets more complex, unfair and dysfunctional? There is, however, a better way to collect taxes that takes both politics and lobbyist profits out of the tax code.
The most viable alternative to the current system remains the FairTax, a progressive national consumption tax with 70 Congressional co-sponsors and a growing citizen base clamoring for change. Unlike the current system, it taxes the $1.5 trillion underground economy, transforms twelve million illegal immigrants into taxpayers as consumers, and ends the marriage penalty, the corporate tax, the capital gains tax, the inheritance tax and all income and payroll taxes. It eliminates all federal taxes on the poor, gives the middle class a healthy tax break and taxes billionaire's spending at an equal level. Every wage earner takes home their entire (federal withholding free) paycheck under the FairTax. It also provides a far broader base of revenues into the faltering Social Security and Medicare programs. Most experts concede that adoption of the FairTax would stimulate trillions of dollars of foreign investment into the US economy but despite its clear benefits to the nation and for predictably self-interested reasons, the tax lobby hates the FairTax. Without exemptions, it removes both lobbyists and Congressional mischief from the tax code.
Even without prominent FairTax advocate and Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee on the campaign trail and despite blatant distortions from Washington, the national FairTax campaign continues to grow at the grassroots level. It is building toward the day when enough taxpayers can finally overcome Congress' self-interest in their favorite plaything -- the cause of our annual tax torture and a millstone around the neck of our economy.
Ken Hoagland is the National Communications Director of FairTax.org, a nonpartisan national grassroots campaign to replace the income tax system with a progressive, transparent and simple national retail sales tax.
SOURCE FairTax.org
Ken Hoagland of FairTax.org, +1-713-667-3331,
Fair Tax ping!
IMHO, you will never see a Fair Tax, or a Flat Tax, or any kind of reasonable tax reform as long as the Congress can prevent it. The Tax Code, as perverse and convoluted as it is, remains a TOOL OF POLITICS AND POWER for Washington pols to manipulate and build power over the people. It is a powered WEAPON to be used by pols to ensure their power by controlling the behaviors of voting groups through taxation, as Lenin professed it to be many years ago.
The liberal socialists, in particular, always cry for MORE TAXATION to give them more control over the public, their only real objective in politics. They claim the NEED THE MONEY which is a lie, and they continue to spend selectively to ensure their power through earmarks and other well-hidden tax increases.
Don’t think that the oppressive left, in BOTH PARTIES, will ever take power away from itself. And that is exactly what a Fair Tax would be -— the removal of CONTROLLING POWER over the people, and insurance of empowerment for themselves.
oh joy, a blog comment masquerading as a press release. The author has no clue how K street works.
We are taxed too much, not at the right amount but wrong method.
That part he got dead nuts on.
K Street will still be employed by companies who want the entitlemnt check of the fairtax scam adjusted to favor their industry. (a prebate/rebate coupon to spend more on a car/house/cellphone/tv/airlineticket) You shall have k street employeed for the sales tax exemptions.
The author is clueless.
He is just posting his BLOG opinion on a free press release site: http://www.sunherald.com/447/index.html because nobody would be searching for his letter to the editor otherwise. I wonder how much more hits he gets for this disengenuous manipulation rather than putting it out in the press room.
This so called press release is not getting any HONEST coverage because the fairtax scammers can’t be honest about the MASSIVE entitlement program, the draconian government registration and monitoring required under HR 25 as found on http://www.thomas.gov
They can get honest PR so they go for this sleazy pass through.
To the Point!
If you are finished puking your total ignorance, please shut up so the intelligent poeople here can discuss this important subject in peace. You have long since gotten boring with your johnny-one-note comments. Either get something intelligent to say or go back over to Dimwit Underground where you belong.
No. They won't.
You are clueless.
======= Wow that was easy.
I've posted this before, but it's worth posting again here... This year, the government will send me $300 as a rebate for the taxes that I paid. However, in computing the taxes I paid, I spent $500 (well, $499.00 actually, but it's close enough) with H&R Block. I don't like giving the government too much of my money as an interest free loan, while I'm getting a refund, it's only about $230.
So, given the rebate and my refund, I'll have paid off my credit card bill for H&R Block, AND be able to get myself a steak dinner at Outback Steak House... Or maybe I'll have dinner at the newly reopened Strouds in KC.
Still, the simple fact is that this isn't a gift. It's my money. I was the one who originally paid it, and it pissed me off that so many people are saying "the government is giving me some money." Well, in some cases it is: People who paid no federal income taxes are getting a "rebate!" And people who paid A LOT of federal income taxes won't be getting any back at all.
Mark
You are clueless.
======= Wow that was easy.
Ad hominem arguments are easy, and mostly useless for convincing anybody of anything. The only thing they do imply is that the speaker might be losing the argument.
Now, do you care to tell us how the Fair Tax will change human nature so that:
I doubt that politicians are going to be pure and holy about this one sacrosanct issue of the Fair Tax.
That's right!
The only thing they do imply is that the speaker might be losing the argument.
Right again.
Did you somehow miss that I was parroting another poster's "arguments"?
You may want to review "strawman" logicall fallacy.
That is your first strawman. It is your made up position of a fair tax proponent...made up by you so you can knock it down. Trouble is, it isn't a real argument. You made it up.
Business men won't want to find a edge...
Your 2nd strawman... quite obviously so. You may wish to consider alternate strategies of discussion. You aren't good at strawman. Again, this is your made-up argument.
Lobbyists won't try to sell their skill ...
3rd strawman. Made up yet again.
Lobbyists don't just work on tax law...
4th strawman.
I doubt that politicians are going to be pure and holy about this one sacrosanct issue...
5th time - with a twist - caricature!
If you have an issue w/ an argument that has been made, [not "made-up" LOL] have at it.
That is your first strawman. It is your made up position of a fair tax proponent...made up by you so you can knock it down. Trouble is, it isn't a real argument. You made it up.
It's an argument, but certainly not a strawman. It addresses a proposition that you raised, and it proposes the contra-proposition, with additional supporting factual claims. The contra-proposition can't really be a strawman, you know, as strawmen are arguments totally unrelated to the subject at hand. And a claim of not-A is very directly related to a claim of A.
The proposition you raised was the inverse of "K Street will still be employed by companies who want the entitlemnt check of the fairtax scam adjusted to favor their industry."
In effect, you said "K Street will not be employed by companies who want the entitlemnt check of the fairtax scam adjusted to favor their industry."
With the long history of lobbying in Washington DC, I think it's a fair question to ask of you why you think all those K-Streeters will not lobby to change the Fair Tax laws to benefit their clients, when they have a history of being able to change just about every other law on the books to please one or the other group of clients.
And further, is it only the 'the entitlemnt check of the fairtax' that is somehow barred to lobbyists? Or do you think that the entire Fair Tax law is outside the possibility of being lobbied about?
And for your clarification, there was one argument in the post: "Lobbyists will lobby on the Fair Tax, because that is what they do". This was supported by the fact that such lobbying is beneficial to the business man, the lobbyist and the politician. It was supported by the fact that lobbyists have lobbied on just about every law we have. You might dispute these factual claims, but then we'd all worry about your contact with reality.
You weren't parroting his arguments, but his conclusion, which And judging by your next response, you had not read anything but that one 4 word sentence. (And I think the word you want is 'parodying', not 'parroting'. Parroting is about the same as echoing, parodying is making fun of).
The original article has this line "a better way to collect taxes that takes both politics and lobbyist profits out of the tax code." that really does show the author to be clueless. How can you possibly take politics out of a law that will be written by politicians, implemented by regulations written by desk jockeys whose output is approved by politicians, and enforced by the executive branch which is headed by a politician.
I expect more on Free Republic, than just a nyah-nyah response, but I guess I should make an exception for you.
There is NOTHING a pol fears more than loss of his/her cushy job. When they realize they are in grave danger of being ousted, they will do it.
It’s not going to be easy, but it is doable.
Can you HONESTly imply that the IRS does not know already far more about all of us than any simple prebate disbursal system would?
The MASSIVE abuse of our national conscience by the IRS is what the FairTax would ameliorate.
Incredible! You feel that because some individuals follow their baser instincts, we should all just embrace their debasement of our Capitalist system and appreciate the status quo because it could never be ended. Nothing matters anyway because all votes are bought and sold in the halls of Congress.
...our lives, our Fortunes, & our sacred Honor means nothing to you!
Not any more! They say 'jump' and we say 'how high?
The one thing about the Fair Tax that scares me (and no one has been able to answer) is that since Congress has the power to raise taxes, what keeps them from jerking up the percentage when they see fit, like to save Medicare or SS?
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