Fair tax at the Tea Day Tax Party in Rochester

April 15th wasn't your average income tax day, a truly grassroots movement sprouted up across the country fueled by anger at Democrats and Republicans who have been spending like drunken sailors and now want even more of the public's money. My father and I attended the Rochester, Minnesota event on the behalf of the Fairtax and I was to speak. When we got there early, the crowd was already around the reported 300 and continued to swell. By the time I spoke, it was easily over 500 and I would guess around 800. It was hard to tell, as there was a lot of churn over and people wedging themselves in wherever they could. They were a very well behaved lot, made up of people from various center-right factions and the atmosphere was festive.

The following is my speech as prepared, it ended up being altered due time restraints and a very vocally involved audience -- something I'm not used to:

So what is the Fairtax and why is this guy talking about a new tax on a day of protesting tax increases?

The Fairtax is a revolutionary replacement (not reform) of the federal tax system. Why is it revolutionary? Well, it requires the repeal of the 16^th Amendment that established the income tax and the abolishment of the I.R.S. Does that sound good to you? How does replacing all the other federal taxes such as Social Security, Medicare, estate (or death tax), and corporate taxes sound?

The Fairtax replaces them with one national sales tax of 23% that is only collected at the point of retail sale. What that means is that you only pay a federal tax when you buy something for personal consumption and it will be collected at the cash register. No more filling out 1040’s! Right now, it is estimated that $265 billion a year is spent on tax preparation. How insane is that we have to pay out of our pockets for the privilege of giving more of our money to the government?

There are hidden imbedded taxes at multiple points along the supply chain for anything we buy at local stores that we are oblivious to, but cause a lot of headaches for business and are eventually passed down to us consumers. Getting rid of them simplifies everything and we will get to see what we are really paying. For the small business owner, it means that you don’t pay taxes on payroll, stock, and equipment needed for the business.

Not only does the Fairtax bring true transparency to taxation, it will supercharge our economy, leading to growth – something we aren’t seeing anymore. Right now, we are seeing corporations flee the country due to increasing taxes that make it incredibly hard to operate in the United States. If enacted, the Fairtax will cause the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) to increase by a staggering 10.5 percent in the first year alone! What does that mean? It means more jobs (4%), more production (12%), and a real increase in wages (8%).

Our country is in crisis. We are looking at a staggering amount of debt in the new federal budget. Newt Gingrich wrote this little nugget of information today:

“• If you’re a 50-year old-with a college degree, you will pay approximately $81,000 over your working life just to pay the interest on the debt in the Obama budget.
• If you’re a 40-year-old, you’ll pay $132,000.
• And if you’re a 20-year-old, just starting out after college, you will pay a whopping $114,000 just to service the interest on the debt created by the Obama budget.”

It is true the Fairtax won’t do anything about out of control government spending, but it is start of bringing sanity back to an insane situation. In 2008, $3.42 billion was spent on lobbying in Washington, D.C. – that equals $6.84 million per legislator. What was over half of this lobby money aimed at procuring? Tax breaks. This is how federal legislators dispensing favors and exercise personal power, by selectively choosing who gets to pay less in taxes. And people wonder why our government has gotten corrupt! Think of all the time wasted on it, time that should be spent on actually getting things done and listening to the people instead of lobbyists. The Fairtax will take away that abuse of privilege and time by transferring the power of when we are taxed back to the people. It will be the greatest transfer of power from a government to the people since the Revolution.

Everyone will pay under the Fairtax, there won’t be any exemptions. There won’t be any tax dodging like there is now. Everyone pays their fair share. This isn’t a merciless system, the poor and elderly won’t be penalized, as there is going to be a “prebate” (rebate that comes in advance) that is calculated to cover the taxes on needed items such as food and shelter. This is based on the number of people in the family; for example a family of four would get between $406 and $537 each month, depending on its makeup. It doesn’t matter how much they make, this applies to everyone. Those who have more money will spend more and that spending will be what is taxed. Combine that with used goods not being taxed and you have a fair system that will enable the poor to work their way up and out of poverty. This is a country founded on the idea that we can make better lives for ourselves and the Fairtax will not change that, but enhance it.

In their great wisdom, our founding fathers created a constitution that understood our rights were self apparent, God given and inalienable, not something granted by the whims of the government currently in power. Real power lies in the hands of the people, but the people have to make their voices heard. There is a reason the 1^st Amendment to the Constitution is the first in the Bill of Rights. Without free speech, the D.C. establishment would be able to completely ignore the people. What we see here today and across our great country is only a beginning. You must make your voice heard and continue to be heard!

I just want to thank all of you for coming out and exercising your Constitutional rights to be heard and seen. We have to exercise our rights to keep them. Thank you for being good Americans.

The Fairtax is a grass roots movement, those at the top won’t make this kind of reform unless, we the people, demand it. We need your help to make this happen. Please visit our table or our website www.fairtaxmn.org for more information and to volunteer.

Tax Reform and the Fairtax

Last night, my dad and I rolled into the driveway at a quarter of midnight after a round trip of over 250 miles. Now why would anyone be out on a Monday night on that kind of trip?

The answer is we were giving a presentation to a Farm Bureau board in a distant county on the Fairtax. Or I should say, I was assisting my father as he gave the presentation. Yes, it is more volunteer work that I'm writing about. There are important causes that need volunteers and they are the ones people don't think about first. These are civic minded causes, not charities, and are very important because they are about things that affect most of us, not just some of us. In this case, it is one of the two things you can't escape in life and it isn't death. It's the other one, taxes.

We are being taxed to death in this country, mainly because of non-compliance that adds up to the hundreds of billions of dollars and the federal taxes inflicted in every step of production of products. That's one of the big reasons all our factories are being moved overseas, other countries give massive tax breaks as well as have cheaper labor. Most of the taxes we pay are hidden from us, as companies pass their tax burdens to us in the retail price of products but even with that it is still too expensive to manufacture in the USA. Well, unless you are the Japanese, who have it even worse and are building more and more automotive plants in the Midwest. Anyway, we need to do something to simplify taxes and take the burdens off of the middle class and poor, but most of all make taxation completely transparent to the American people.

The best solution to this and the only one that really guarantees fairness is the national sales tax proposal called the Fairtax. Please check out Fairtax.org and especially their FAQ here. It will take some studying to understand it totally, but once you do you will most likely approve of it. Right now, 50% of the lobbyists in Washington, D.C. are there lobbying for tax exemptions and legislation to for companies or organizations who want tax breaks. This is how our Senators and Congressmen dispense favors and is a source of great power in the Legislative branch. Pork in earmarks and riders attached to bills often includes specially worded exemptions for specific corporations without actually naming the company. We get the Fairtax in and the 16th Amendment repealed and we'll see the biggest transfer of power from the federal government back to the people since the Bill of Rights was passed.

What a Week!

I'm happy to say Dad and I survived the county fair. At least I had more than one person to spell me at the Republican booth, Dad had only one volunteer on Thursday to give him an extended break. Of the many things I learned over the week, the most important is that you really need at least two people in the booth in order to have fun. All the mean spirited attacks happened on Thursday and things were mellow for the rest of the fair. Even managed to have some good political discussions with some of the fair goers during the slower times, I only got one chapter read of the book I took. All in all, it was a good fair for our local Republicans and Dad managed to get 19 signatures on the Fairtax petition at his booth. Not bad for a first time at the fair and I think he'll do better as more people find out what the Fairtax is.

The fair itself was heavily trafficked despite the rain on Thursday and Friday. In fact, those were the two busiest days we had. Maybe the downpours drove people into the barns and buildings, because the big day of the fair on Saturday was a disappointment at the booths. I expected gangbusters business from what everyone had told me, but it was deathly slow at times. By the time evening came, the booth exhibitors and some of the attendees were getting loopy and the silly things began to happen. Sunday was surprisingly busy, that was the day that was supposed to be dead.

One of the great things about a county fair is getting to interact with a wide variety of people. Add to that the opportunity to talk to the old hands in politics and you have a very educational experience. Great fun having conversations with other volunteers kept things moving along, for I put some long hours in. That included two days straight of 12 hours being at the fair. Needless to say, Dad and I are dragging our sorry butts around.

All in all, it was fun if grueling.