"The FairTax will not be enforceable and evasion will be rampant"

More than 80% of all tax returns are eliminated under the FairTax--every individual filing. What remains are retail outlets collecting the FairTax. Of these, 80 percent of all retail sales now occur at large retail chains like Wal-Mart. The point is oversight will still reside under the Treasury Department but the government's responsibility will be over a far smaller "universe" of tax collection points making compliance oversight far less costly and far more effective than the current system which costs $265 billion a year in compliance costs and still comes up $350 billion a year short of what is owed.

Read more information about compliance in the FairTax white paper: FairTax Reduces Complexity, Compliance Costs and Noncompliance.

Headlines In the News

Kids Make Nutritious Snacks

Who determined this?

Headlines In the News

Astronaut Takes Blame for Gas in Spacecraft

Maybe next time he won't east beans before takeoff

The Tebow Family Scares Liberals

By Star Parker

February 1, 2010

Why are pro-abortion groups so up in arms about the Tim Tebow ad that CBS will run during the Superbowl?

According to the press release of Focus on the Family, the Christian organization sponsoring the ad, University of Florida football star and Heisman Trophy winner Tebow and his mother, Pam, "will share a personal story centered on the theme of "Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life."

The Tebows are devout Christians, and Pam gave birth to Tim despite advice from her doctor to abort because of illness during her pregnancy.

Since the script is not publicly available, all we know is the family story and knowledge that the ad passed muster with CBS.

We spoke with Focus on the Family spokesman Gary Schneeberger and asked if the ad in any way speaks to the politics of abortion. The answer was an emphatic "no."

According to Schneeberger, it's "not selling, it is celebrating" and is about the "love between a mother and a son."

So what's provoking the letter writing campaign of feminist groups to CBS to pull the ad? Why would the National Organization for Women call this "offensive to women" or would the Women's Media Center call it "divisive?"

Sure, there's no question that Focus on the Family is pro-life and opposes legal and readily accessible abortion. But CBS wouldn't be running this ad if its focus was political advocacy.

So what's bothering these women?

Two things.

First, the enabler of human brutality is de-humanization. Pro-abortionists know that our existing legalized-abortion regime can only continue as long as we keep the human face off abortion.

It's why ultrasound has revolutionized this world. When young women who have doubts about taking their pregnancy to term see the live child within them, they overwhelming decide to give birth. You don't have to preach. They see that this is life and they know what to do.

I have written in the past that if the personal ultrasound experience could be conveyed to public consciousness, the abortion holocaust would stop.

The Tebow story will put this human face on abortion for the 150 million or so who will watch the Super Bowl. Nothing could be scarier for the culture of death.

When Harriet Beecher Stowe published "Uncle Tom's Cabin," she put a human face on slavery. When the American public understood that slaves were human beings, the capacity to tolerate slavery was punctured.

Abraham Lincoln supposedly said to Stowe when he met her in 1862, "So you are the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war."

Last week Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke at Auschwitz, the former Nazi death camp in Poland. It marked the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the camp, where over one million, mostly Jews, were murdered.

The six million who were slaughtered in the Holocaust in Europe challenges comprehension. But the meaning of this changed when in the 1950s Anne Frank's diary was published. When the public at large read the thoughts and feelings of this young girl, recorded in hiding before she went to her death with her family, the human face of the Holocaust emerged.

The second aspect of the Tebow ad that scares abortionists is that it shows that love arises from personal responsibility. This beautiful story of a mother and son shows that love is not about political claims but about individuals taking responsibility for their life and knowing that life is about more than self. It is caring for others and knowing that you are part of something bigger than just you.

At a time of great spiritual unrest in our country, I believe this courageous initiative taken by the Tebows and Focus on the Family will be well received.

---

Star Parker is is an author and president of CURE, Coalition for Urban Renewal and Education. Her books include "White Ghetto: How Middle Class America Reflects Inner City Decay."

'Choice' Means Allowing Women to Make a Different One

By Doug Patton

February 1, 2010

University of Florida quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow and his mother are about to learn the same lesson Todd and Sarah Palin and their family learned during the 2008 campaign. That lesson is that you had better not bring your pro-life message into the public square -- especially if you have lived it. That, of course, is what pro-abortion advocates fear most. Anyone willing to make the sacrifice to give life to someone society would just as soon discard threatens the order of things for them.

Like Sarah Palin's fifth baby, Trig, Tim Tebow would never have been born had so-called pro-choice advocates had their way. Tim's mother, Pam Tebow, was a missionary in the Philippines when she was pregnant with him in 1987. Tim was also her fifth baby. When Pam Tebow became ill during the pregnancy, her doctor advised her to have an abortion. She chose instead to give her baby life, and that baby grew up to be perhaps one of the finest athletes of his generation.

During this year's Super Bowl, Pam Tebow will appear in a commercial celebrating her decision to give her son life, and this has liberals in a snit. After all, no one is supposed to challenge the orthodoxy of the Left. The spot is sponsored by Focus on the Family, one of the finest pro-family organizations in the country. Founded more than thirty years ago by Dr. James Dobson, this group has worked tirelessly to promote life and the family in America, but to hear the pro-abortion radicals on the left talk, one would think that the organization was some sort of Nazi hate group devoted to destroying anyone who disagrees with them. They have been called "divisive" because they believe marriage is the union of one man and one woman and that life begins at conception and should end at natural death. What radical concepts.

One leftist wag called Focus "a Christian hate group." Another called them "anti-choice." But it is the other side that is decidedly "anti-choice" because the only choice acceptable to them is abortion. Women like Pam Tebow and Sarah Palin are supposed to make the choice to kill their babies, and when they don't, they become a threat to the whole house of cards that the abortion rights movement has always been.

A coalition of narrow-minded liberal groups led by the New York-based Women's Media Center, backed by the National Organization for Women (which purports to speak for all American women despite the fact that their membership numbers are in the low six figures), the Feminist Majority Foundation and other groups, urged CBS to scrap the Tebow ad. "An ad that uses sports to divide rather than to unite has no place in the biggest national sports event of the year -- an event designed to bring Americans together," said Jehmu Greene, president of the Women's Media Center.

Television's cruelest dimwit, Joy Behar, pointed out that Tim Tebow could just as easily grown up to be a rapist pedophile. Apparently, on the strength of that possibility, Pam Tebow should have aborted baby Tim while she had the chance.

The truth, of course, is that it is the left that hates anyone who dares to show the world that there is another alternative to the cheap, cowardly shortcut of abortion. Their pro-death dogma, masquerading as "the right to choose," has created a climate where traditional values and a reverence for life are now considered "controversial." When those with a different worldview live out their values and celebrate their choice, they are vilified, mocked, disdained and despised. And they call us hateful.

---

Doug Patton is a former speechwriter and public policy advisor who now works as a freelance writer. His weekly columns appear in newspapers across the country and on various Internet websites, including Human Events Online and GOPUSA.com, where he is a senior writer and state editor. Readers can e-mail him at dougpatton@cox.net.

16th Amendment the Most Amazing Racket in U.S. History

By Jamie Allman

Once Rep. Allyson Schwartz of Pennsylvania came up with the brilliantly greedy idea of taxing even unearned income, I had half a mind to conjure Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal.” The famous wit suggested eating young people as a means of easing economic stress, and I felt perhaps it was time to apply his deficit reduction technique to modern times by devouring Democrats like Schwartz.

But first I realized there’s no amount of Herbes de Provence to cover up what would surely be a gamey taste.

Second, I realized that our most crippling and liberty-depriving tax assault came at the hands of a Republican in the first place. The original RINO, William Howard Taft, first started fantasizing about a federal income tax in 1909. The actual passage of the 16th Amendment providing the Feds the right to directly tax citizens ironically came after a failed game played by conservatives. They greedy Republicans like Taft and his equally greedy Democrat cohorts were going to team up and try to get the issue passed in Congress. So the conservatives tried a bluff and introduced the Constitutional Amendment. They figured there’d be no way enough states would ratify it and such an idea would go away forever.

But a majority of states did ratify it. Game over. Liberty and pursuit of happiness: done.

Now it’s time to repeal the 16th Amendment altogether.

Our Founding Fathers revolted over less. Our income is taxed more by the federal government than we ever were under British rule. In fact, not even the Brits dared tax income.

Direct taxation of income is a clear violation of Article I of the Constitution. The Supreme Court ruled as much in 1895. But that didn’t stop the organized criminals of yore to go full-speed ahead with the 16th Amendment.

If you and I came up with an idea to take people’s hard-earned money and use it to buy votes and secure our own income we’d have to talk about it with the door locked and only after the room was swept for FBI bugs. But now the income tax has been institutionalized, and the country hasn’t been the same since.

You can’t blame the greedy political pigs back in 1913. How perfect a ploy: You force the citizenry to hand over a portion of their money so that you can use it to create programs and entitlements that would essentially be used to buy votes and, thus, keep you permanently employed. On top of that, you take the money in increments, out of every paycheck, over a period of time and then, when you return some of the money you siphoned, you call it a “refund.”

The introduction of the direct federal income tax is responsible for transforming our government from servant to master. It turns out about 40 percent of our workday is solely for the purpose of funding the federal budget. The windfall created by the direct income tax has served as a blank check for politicians to use our money with no requirement whatsoever that they be prudent. Our money is a constant flow.

Why not force the government to live like the citizens do? Most of us, when the kids need clothes, would never consider sending the kid to the mall with a credit card. No. We give them a set amount of cash and they can buy two shirts and a pair of pants, or two pairs of pants and a shirt, or three shirts. In other words, they can get what they want within their budgets. And when mom and dad need something for the house or need to take a vacation they don’t go to the neighbor’s house and demand the neighbors pay. The federal government, aided by the bottomless pit of income tax dollars, operates in the opposite fashion of its citizens.

Instead of being a slim machine providing only border control and national security (the way the Founding Fathers created it), the government has for decades continually come up with new ways to spend the money that floods in from our paychecks. Usually the politicians come up with programs most likely to addict citizens to government help, intervention and oversight.

We have reached a point in America where there is no living citizen who remembers the country when it existed in the fashion the Founding Fathers intended.

Repeal the 16th Amendment. Continue to allow states to collect income taxes and allow the feds to collect revenue. Impose a national sales tax to provide a revenue source for proper federal government functions. And always reserve the option of devouring a politician as a last resort.

Jamie Allman is host of “Allman In The Morning: Common Sense Radio” on 97.1 FM Talk in St. Louis. He is a 14-time local-television Emmy winner in investigative and political reporting and a multiple Edward R. Murrow Award winner.

2012 Presidential Poll

For the first time in one of our monthly polls looking ahead to the 2012 Presidential election, Barack Obama trails one of his hypothetical opponents, albeit by the smallest of margins.

Mike Huckabee has a 45-44 advantage over Obama, aided largely by a 44-38 lead with independents. His 35/29 favorability breakdown is actually slightly better than it was in November.

Mitt Romney does the next best, trailing Obama 44-42. His favorability is 36/32, and he's the most popular Republican among independents (41/32). Romney actually matches Huckabee with GOP voters this month and gets over 50%, ending a trend in his numbers that had seemed to spell difficulty for snagging a Republican nomination.

Sarah Palin trails Obama 49-41 largely because she loses 14% of the Republican vote to him, making her the only one of the GOP candidates we tested who Obama could get double digit crossover support against. At the same time Palin continues to be the most well liked potential GOP candidate within her party- at 71% favorability. Her problem appears to be that the Republicans who don't care for her will go so far as to vote for Obama instead of her.

Finally our blog readers voted for David Petraeus as our wild card Republican this month and his numbers come out as a mixed bag. He has the largest deficit against Obama, trailing 44-34. But at +13 his net favorability is better than the President or any of the other Republicans we tested. The problem for him is that the numbers break down 25/12- 63% of voters in the country don't know enough about him to have formed an opinion. Who knows if Petraeus would actually have any interest in going into politics, but if he did he would be introducing himself to many vo ters for the first time.

Snapshot results:

Hypothetical 2012 matchups:

1. Mike Huckabee 45% Barack Obama 44%

2. Barack Obama 44% Mitt Romney 42%

3. Barack Obama 49% Sarah Palin 41%

4. Barack Obama 44% David Petraeus 34%

Favs:

1. Petraeus 25%/12%

2. Huckabee 35%/29%

3. Mitt Romney 36%/32%

4. Palin 42%/51%

More Key numbers:

1. Mike Huckabee is viewed favorably by all age groups, except 30-45 year-olds, where he's at -3%.

2. Mitt Romney's viewed unfavorably by 18-29 year-olds (-6%) and 30-45 year-olds (-12%)

3. Predictably, Petraeus is viewed favorably by every age group, except 18-29 year-olds

4. Sarah Palin is viewed unfavorably by all age groups (including a whopping -29% among 30-45 year-olds), except among 46-65 year-olds where she's at +5%

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Of course, it's way too early to put much stock in a presidential poll, unless you want to see where people stand at this point in time. Right now, Huckabee seems to be a front-runner and apparently the only person named who could beat Obama in an election and has only a one percent advantage.

Sarah Palin, who I personally think is vastly underrated, isn't even a contender, nor, honestly, do I think she should be. There is a lot of remaking that needs to be done, and I'm not sure it can be overcome by poor handling in the past election. I don't see her running for anything in 2012.

Petraeus has some name recognition, but not as a politician. The last career military person who made it to the White House was Eisenhower, and I don't think Petraeus could change that. He'd be spending too much time explaining himself and his views to, well, pretty much the rest of the country.

Romney is unfortunately viewed unfavorably by too large a group of potential voters. I think he'd be a good choice, but, that's only my opinion. Perhaps a card of Huckabee and Romney could unseat Obama in 2012?

We'll just have to wait to see what the future holds. While we will start seeing various people trying to position themselves in the next few months, the election itself is still nearly three years away. A lot can happen between now and then and we'll see various names come and go. As my mother would have said, we'll see who (and what about whom) comes out of the woodwork.

Some will be like groundhog Punxsatawny Phil and stick their heads out to see what the weather is like. Some won't like what they see and scurry back into their holes. Others will stick it out for a while and then fade away. Some we won't know about, others will be obvious; some will be wannabes, and others viable contenders. Make no doubt, there are plenty who are already looking around to see what the future might hold for them.

It might not make any difference anyway. If the people who predict the end of the world on December 21, 2012 (based on the end on that date of the Mayan calendar) are correct, whoever wins in November 2012 won't make it to the inauguration anyway.

But in the meantime, the next 32 months will be interesting in the political field.

Republicans, Independents, Libertarians, and Democrats Join Together for the FairTax

JANUARY 29, 2010

Michael Reagan’s leadership of the FairTax National Victory Campaign has thrilled most FairTax supporters but dismayed a few. The revered Reagan legacy has suggested to some that the FairTax campaign will be less non-partisan and appeal to only a fraction of the American public in the future.

Democrats, Independents, Libertarians, and those who have given up on any political affiliation should take heart. Michael Reagan is part of a strong team at the FairTax campaign that includes Jessica Wexler, Obama state field organizer, Ken Hoagland, an independent who has worked on grassroots issues across the political spectrum, and thousands of dedicated volunteers from across the political spectrum. Neal Boortz, a great FairTax champion is also a Libertarian. All are working closely together to win a better national tax system and a more honest relationship between citizen and government.

As the press release announcing Michael Reagan’s new role with the FairTax campaign makes clear, “This will remain a non-partisan national movement to win enactment of a far better national tax system.” Reagan went on to say, “Like my father, the FairTax campaign has long said that such big changes must be driven by Americans across the political spectrum. I join many Democrats as well as Republicans and independents who believe the FairTax will cure a host of national problems and lead to a new era of robust economic growth."

The plain fact is, the FairTax cannot win enactment nor can the 16th amendment be repealed without strong support across the political spectrum. FairTax leaders understand this reality and are working every day to bring the benefits of the idea to those in union halls, Republican and Democratic clubs, investor and senior citizen clubs, college campuses, and to states across the country, whether they are “red” or “blue.” The FairTax campaign is a movement based outside of Washington, D.C., for all Americans.

What we have found in hundreds of meetings, on hundreds of talk shows, and even in casual conversations, is that Americans of all political beliefs will passionately support the FairTax once they understand the details. Bridging the skepticism and polarization that commonly divides us can be a challenge, but the FairTax research itself is a roadmap for communicating the virtues of the idea to the different parts of the political quilt that make up the electorate in the United States of America. Unlike every election and every other tax debate, the FairTax does not pit Americans against each other, but joins together our great American family against the corruption of the tax code in Washington, D.C.

Other strong voices best known for their political loyalties will inevitably join our needed movement. When they do, they will work for a cause that is greater than any political party or loyalty. They will be advocates for America, for the working man and woman, for more and better jobs, for our children, and for making sure that our best days as a nation are ahead of us.

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My apologies that this is several days late. I worked the weekend and have some dental issues, so I'm not keeping up like I would like. I feel there are times that a posting is better late than never, and anything about the Fair Tax falls under that umbrella. Unless, of course, I'm posting after it's been passed and signed into law. Then, my job is done anyway :D

Headlines In the News

New Study of Obesity Looks for Larger Test Group

Headlines In the News

Man Struck By Lightning: Faces Battery Charge

Shocking!

Father O'Malley and the Jackass

Father O'Malley rose from his bed. It was a fine spring day in his new Washington DC parish. He walked to the window of his bedroom to get a deep breath of air and to see the beautiful day outside. He then noticed there was a jackass lying dead in the middle of his front lawn.

He promptly called the US House of Representatives for assistance.

The conversation went like this: "Good morning. This is speaker Pelosi. How might I help you?"

"And the best of the day to yerself. This is Father O'Malley at St.Brigid's. There's a jackass lying dead in me front lawn. Would ye be so kind as to send a couple o' yer lads to take care of the matter?"

Speaker Pelosi, considering herself to be quite a wit, replied with a smirk, "Well now father, it was always my impression that you people took care of last rites!"

There was dead silence on the line for a long moment.

Father O'Malley then replied: "Aye, that's certainly true, but we are also obliged to first notify the next of kin!"