It's All In The Name

It’s time to do a topic on something near and dear to my heart. I have been putting this off for some time. Why, you ask? I think I wanted to make sure I had proper time to write the best article I could about the subject. After awhile, I realized it has been on the back burner way too long. So here we go.

The subject today is the tax code. It’s broken. It does not work very well. Find someone to disagree.

If you do want disagreement, ask ten people for the answer to the problem. I have researched many proposed solutions, and there is only one truly sufficient answer. That is the Fair Tax.

Don’t take my word for it. Read about it yourself. If you want to know even more, get the book and read it. Or visit Neal Boortz’s website (he co-authored the book).

You will hear, or you have already heard, all sorts of lies concerning the Fair Tax. I don’t know why, other than to think that the Fair Tax will remove power from a lot of people, and there are lots of people who enjoy being in power and don’t relish the thought of relinquishing the power they hold, even if it means harming countless others.

Basically, under the Fair Tax, all current federal income taxes are abolished. No withholding from your paycheck, no social security taxes, no medicare taxes, no capital gains, no estate taxes, etc. By eliminating all of these taxes, all the loopholes that go along with the taxes are eliminated. Gone are all of the headaches associated with filing taxes. Goodbye to almost all, if not all, of the IRS. Creative tax cheating would become nearly extinct.

Replacing all of this would be one single rate federal sales tax, collected one time. You don’t get taxed on money you’ve already paid taxes on. You don’t pay more for items because the payroll taxes, self-employment taxes, social security taxes and others are tacked onto the price of goods.

This already sounds like a great idea, but they went out and improved it even more.

This is when you’ll hear someone (who does not want to lose that power we were discussing) warn that the poor will be unfairly taxed on goods they have to have. Lo and behold, there is a rebate for each family to cover necessities. On the fairtax.org website, there are charts to show how much, but know that a family of 4 would receive a monthly rebate of just under $500.

Okay, following this? First, you take home 100% of your pay, no taxes. Your paycheck jumps, giving you more money to spend. Then, on top of this, the government sends you a check each month to refund your family for spending for essential items such as food. More money for you to spend.

Here those power grabbers will get hysterical and begin to shout about prices going through the roof for all items, proclaiming that tacking on a 23% sales tax will drive the cost of everything beyond the ability of poor people to purchase.

Wrong. Anyone who says this is guilty of either a) not reading about the Fair Tax and trying to rely on others or just make it up as they go, or b) deliberately lying to mislead people into not supporting the Fair Tax. Why? See power hungry, above.

Quick and oversimplified lesson time. The price you pay for an item has all sorts of taxes built into it right now. It’s not just the cost of production and labor built in, it’s all built in. When you eat a steak, you are paying for the lease on the restaurant, the cost of the furnishings, the salaries of the cook, waitress and manager, the health tax the owner pays for the staff, the insurance the owner pays for, the utilities for running the restaurant, etc. When you remove a good portion of this, the price will drop accordingly. Most of the research shows that after the dust has settled, prices overall will actually be lower than what they are today for most items.

Think of this – you get 100% of your paycheck (more money to spend), you get rebated for essential items, basically removing a lot of burden on those at or near the poverty level (more money to spend), and you pay less for items (money goes further). Yep, now I see why liberals are so against this idea. People would be empowered by this Fair Tax, which would remove the economic shackles the liberals use to enslave the poor and keep them under their collective thumbs.

There are other benefits to the Fair Tax, such as interest rates coming down. There are too many advantages for me to go over here.

Tell you what. Don’t take my word for any of this, and don’t take the word of your power hungry politician who will send you a letter (at your expense) spreading lies about the Fair Tax.

Simply do this. Go to the website. Read the book Make up your own mind. That is not too much to ask for a topic that could redefine our entire economic structure.

I had the great fortune to attend a lecture by the co-author of the book, Neal Boortz, in Fairhope AL on 12 August 2005. For those of you unfamiliar with Mr. Boortz, he has a nationally syndicated radio talk show that began in the Atlanta market in the late 1960’s. I listened to him when I went to high school in the area in the mid 1970’s. He is a great American with some wonderful ideas on any topic available.

It was my distinct pleasure to listen to Mr. Boortz live. My children and my wife were as excited as I was about meeting him. I was so excited I forgot my camera at home and was forced to use my wife’s camera. We only got three pictures before the battery died on us. Oh, well. I missed the chance to take a picture of my daughter showing her T Shirt to Mr. Boortz. It was a list of things you learn by playing video games (No matter how long you fight, you can always fight again; Shoot everything, if it blows up or dies, it was bad; You can overcome most adversaries simply by having enough quarters; etc) He enjoyed the shirt and my daughter enjoyed meeting the Talkmaster.

Here are the pictures I was able to take before the battery death