FairTax in the News

Understanding the FairTax webinar for March 2010


Special Topic: Comparing the FairTax to the Flat Tax

WHEN: Thursday Mar. 25, 2010

TIME: 8 to 8:45pm Eastern Time, 7 to 7:45pm Central, 6 to 6:45 Mountain, 5 to 5:45 Pacific

WHERE: Your home, your Personal Computer

WHY:To provide an interactive forum for people who cannot get to local meetings to learn about the FairTax and to present Special Topics that are frequently misunderstood or not generally discussed. Education is the weapon of the FairTax grassroots organizations and we are Educating the Nation on the web.

Join Marc Manieri, Americans for Taxation Community Coordinator in the Greater Orlando, Florida Area. Marc’s webinars are drawing national participation from seasoned FairTax supporters as well as those just getting started as a supporter. We help build the knowledge base of those on the front lines as well as those wanting to know what the FairTax is about. We educate candidates and sitting Congressional Representatives on the merits of the FairTax.

Many participants have asked Marc if the presentation is available to them. The answer is yes. Marc sends an email to each participant following the webinar. Just reply asking for the Power Point presentation and notes. Marc will email it to you.

To participate it is necessary to pre-register at this web link
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/935842099

You will receive a confirmation email with instructions for signing in at the time of the Webinar.

This kind of review just might (cliché alert!) drive the stake through the heart of the Fair Tax. Or it might lead to a tax system that is far less frustrating, and far more ‘fair’ to those people that Fair Tax opponents claim to be trying to protect.

If you visit the FairTax site, you’ll find a link to send a note to the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Charlie Rangel, requesting a hearing. What could be more fair to We the People than a fair hearing over how we meet our financial obligation to our nation?

Did You Know?

More than a billion dollars a year is spent lobbying the tax code. Washington lobbyists are so successful as tax lobbyists that the hallway outside the House Ways and Means Committee room is called, “Gucci Gulch” because of the expensive shoes typically worn there. Tax committee staff and retired or defeated members can see six and seven figure “signing bonuses” when they move from Capitol Hill to a “K St” tax lobby firm. The FairTax end this corruption by closing all the loopholes.

more information on the Fair Tax here

To Save the Nation

As the nation drowns in a sea of red ink, more and more and more citizens of all political affiliations are asking “what went wrong with the American dream?”

From coast to American coast and driven by necessity, the American people are awakening to the need to wrest control of our destiny from those who advance their political fortunes at the cost of the genius of the American spirit of innovation, hard work, independence and liberty. There is a dawning realization among a rapidly growing number of citizens that the solution waits in FairTax legislation, HR25, which does more to shift power from government to the citizen than any other single change since the founding of the nation.

More and more experts warn of extended unemployment for what experts also define as the most productive workforce in the world. Once the envy of the world, Bethlehem steel no longer dominates the world, cotton mills across the south no longer ship to the once powerful textile industries in South Carolina, and workers in Detroit see the American automobile industry struggling to regain momentum and take the lead back from foreign manufacturers. From the San Joaquin valley of California to the wheat and corn fields of the Midwest, we grow enough food to feed the world but worry that we don’t have enough food to feed our own children.

In the nation that saw clipper ships ranging the world faster than any competitor, that developed the surgery to replace the human heart, that brought the personal computer forth from a hometown garage in California, that won world wars and went on to rebuild Europe and Asia and that put man after a ten year effort on the moon, we now actually wonder whether the American people can trump the narrow self-interests of a few in Washington who profit lucratively by trading tax code favors against the best interests of nation and every taxpayer.

Our system of government, we are reminded, was never meant to be handed over to a “political class”. It does not fly right on “automatic pilot”. The Founding Fathers understood the inherent nature of government to gather more and more power unto itself and equipped our citizens with the means to restore the proper role of the people over jealously guarded power concentrated within small circles of influence and profit. It could not be more needed.

The FairTax shifts federal taxes away from what helps the economy—work, saving and investment—to what comes out of the economy—consumption. As significantly, the FairTax shifts the power of federal taxation from the backrooms of Congress to the American citizen who then chooses, by personal consumption choices, the timing and size of each family’s tax burden. It exposes the cost of the federal government and makes each consumer a “stakeholder” in the spending habits of government and it frees the American economy to soar to heights not yet seen.

But this needed change waits for the will of the American people. It waits for the great awakening of self-determination that seems to have begun now in TEA parties, in living rooms and at the polls. There are now more Independent voters than either Democrats or Republicans or Libertarians. The FairTax unites all for a new era of American growth, the immediate healing of our economy and millions of needed jobs. It makes the American worker once more in demand and the genius of American productivity and invention again the envy of the world. It waits for the American people to find their voice and their clout to return our great nation to one that is “of, by and for” hometown America. It waits for us.

"The FairTax is not politically viable"

The truth: Great public policy changes do not happen easily. We believe, however, in the promise of the Founding Fathers that this is a nation, "of, by and for the people". In the last year we have seen more Congressional co-sponsors come on board faster than ever before. We have seen five of eight GOP candidates and one Democratic candidate embrace the FairTax. With increased media coverage, as at least one candidate has made this a central plank of his campaign, more and more Americans have come to understand the powerful benefits the FairTax offers the nation. They are, in turn, joining our growing citizen army and are beginning to communicate their wishes to their elected officials. All of this progress is a consequence of the body politic first learning about and then accepting the FairTax. As our ranks grow such pressure will increase on Members of Congress and at some point, the voice of the people will eclipse the voices of the relatively small number of Washingtonians who profit working the income tax system at great cost to the nation. Enactment of the FairTax will require an activist citizenry and a resurgence of what has been too often forgotten--public policy can and should be driven by the public. All that is required is that we all dare to be fair and remind our elected officials that they work for their constituents--not for the narrow self-interests of the tax writing committee, the lucrative tax lobby business or the academicians who have built careers around the complexity of the tax code.

For more information on this topic, see these research papers:

Tax Administration and Collection Costs

A Macroeconomic Analysis of the FairTax Proposal

An Open Letter to the President, the Congress and the American People

Fiscal Federalism - The National FairTax and the States

Headlines In the News

Hospitals are Sued by 7 Foot Doctors

are they taking their case to a higher court?

Headlines In the News

Enfield (London) Couple Slain; Police Suspect Homicide

Can't put anything over on those Bobbys!

A Matter of Constitutionality

When we say that all Americans have the right to health care, we need to be sure just what we're talking about. Are we discussing the right of Americans to have equal access to health care? If so, then we're on the same page.

But, are we talking about the right of Americans to have health care coverage paid for by the Federal government? If so, then could someone point out to me just where in the Constitution anyone is guaranteed health care? I haven't seen it, but maybe I've overlooked it or just don't understand what I'm reading. I'm not trying to be a smart aleck, I really do want to know if I'm missing something.

The Constitution is the set of rules our government operates from and which grants certain rights to its people. It's the basis of our laws in the United States. Laws can't be passed which are prohibited by the Constitution. It becomes confusing when the Constitution doesn't specifically address a specific situation such as abortion, or health care, issues that have become increasingly under the glare of national attention.

The "right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" only very tenuously refer to health care under the "life" aspect. These rights actually come from the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution.

I agree that the Constitution is a living document and must change as issues arise that the Founding Fathers could not have possibly envisioned. However, as a living document, that must evolve to continue to be of relevance, we must also be sure that changes to the Constitution are changes that are fundamental to the United States as a country and as a people, not a change made through a "whim", or a response to an issue that may be more emotional than fundamental. An example of such a change would be the 18th Amendment - a Constitutional amendment that abolished the manufacture, sale, transport, and consumption of liquor within the United States and its territories. Now, I didn't research the whys and wherefores of this Amendment. I'm sure that everyone involved thought it would be for the benefit of the American public to abolish liquor. It was ratified in 1919 and because of a change in public sentiment, it was repealed in 1933.

This is a law that in my opinion is an attempt to legislate morality. Abolish liquor and you abolish all the illegalities that accompany it: drunk driving, public intoxication, criminal activity such as protection, and I'm such many other illegal and immoral activities. I am not in favor of anyone drinking an amount that makes them be stupid (my definition of stupid is anything from being silly, to drunk driving, to physical attack on another person and more). Anyone who does so should be willing to face the consequences of their actions.

You might think I'm off point, but I'm not, really. Look at the Constitution. Does it say anything about drinking in the Constitution? How about morality? One may argue that passing amendments regarding voting (the right to vote to women and that race is no bar to voting) may be moralistic in nature, and I'm not sure that such an argument would be wrong. But history has proven that these amendments are not a passing fancy or a whim of the time, as was Prohibition.

In over two hundred years, there have been only twenty seven amendments, one of which was repealed less than 15 years later. In the preamble, the Bill of Rights (the first 10 amendments) and then the other 17 amendments, I see nothing that will give anyone the idea that health care is a "right" to be granted to an American citizen in the sense that other rights, such as the right to free speech, have been granted under the Constitution.

I'm not a Constitutional scholar, but it's a short read and pretty easy to understand. Health care doesn't fall under the Constitution as a fundamental right, so it must be a right that we are afforded as human beings, but not necessarily as American citizens.

I agree that every American should have equal access to health care. No one should be denied, especially health care that would save a life. I believe that we need an overhaul of the system, but perhaps it should begin with the insurance industry rather than the health care end. It's the insurance side that decides what procedures will be paid for. It's the insurance end that decides who qualifies for health insurance. It's the insurance end that decides how much the insurance company will pay for medications and procedures and how much will be paid for by the insured - you.

It's been said that the Canadian health care system is the model we should strive for. Why then, did the Premier of Newfoundland (I apologize if the title is incorrect) come to the US for heart surgery? Canadians regularly come to the US for procedures it would take weeks or months to get in Canada. We go to Canada for the same medications that we would get in the US, but pay a lot less in Canada than in our own pharmacies. Maybe we need to take a look at the Canadian pharmacy for direction.

It's not Constitutional that Americans receive health care. It is morally imperative that every American citizen have access to health care.

Headlines In the News

Panda Mating Fails; Veterinarian Takes Over

Hope he, or she, is up to the job

Headlines In the News

Police Begin Campaign to Run Down Jaywalkers

I've heard of zero tolerance, but isn't this taking things a bit far?