Welcome to the second FairTax Blogburst!

While many people know what the FairTax is all about, many others do not. This week we’ll cover a little ground explaining the basics of the FairTax, and why the members of this Blogburst think it’s an idea whose time has come.

First off, let’s be clear about one thing — the FairTax is not about tax reform. It’s a complete replacement of the existing system. The current tax on income is completely gutted. In the words of Steve Forbes,

“[The tax code] is a monstrosity, and there’s only one thing to do with it. Scrap it, kill it, drive a stake through its heart, bury it, and hope it never rises again to terrorize the American people.”

That’s exactly what the FairTax does. It replaces all federal income taxes, including personal, estate, gift, capital gains, alternative minimum, Social Security, Medicare, self-employment, and corporate taxes. What does it replace these taxes with? The FairTax is a single-rate, federal sales tax collected only once, at the final point of purchase of new goods and services for personal consumption. Used items are not taxed. Business-to-business purchases for the production of goods and services are not taxed.

Did you get that now? If you buy a used power tool, you’ll pay no tax. If you want to buy a used car, you’ll pay no tax. If you buy a used home, you’ll pay no tax. You can decide for yourself, for the most part, how much tax you want to pay. Of course, groceries and utilities are all new, so you’ll pay tax on those. But the FairTax includes an innovative concept — the prebate. Essentially, this is a rebate you’ll receive at the first of each month on the taxes you’re projected to spend on essential goods and services for that month. Who gets the prebate? Everybody!

Do the math on this on your own paycheck. Look at your net earnings (after taxes), add back in the Federal Income Taxes that were deducted, add back in Medicare, then Social Security. That’s how much you’d bring home if the FairTax were implemented. Plus, you’d have your monthly prebate which would run anywhere from $178 for a single person living alone to $723 for a family of 8 (complete table ).

Taking a real-world example, let’s suppose a married couple is doing pretty well, and bringing home about $57,000 annually. This amounts to $4,750 each month in bring-home pay. Their taxes amount to roughly $1,140. Their tax prebate would be $357. Adding the prebate to their income, Medicare, and Social Security taxes they’d no longer have to pay, their take-home pay would increase by about $1,500 each month, bringing them to $6,250, or $75,000 annually.

This couple would have to spend $6,500 in one month’s time to be taxed $1,500, thus nullifying that increase in discretionary income. Furthermore, that money would have to be spent 100% on new items or services. But guess what? Since all Federal taxes are removed, prices on goods and services will fall to reflect the lower cost of producing them. This will mean that as far as the net effect on your pocketbook goes, there will be no change, as the FairTax is designed to be revenue neutral. In other words, the government isn’t going to be making any more or any less money from taxes, but about the same.

The FairTax has many advantages on our economy, not the least of which is that criminals could no longer salt away money tax-free. Since we’re no longer taxing income, we don’t have to worry about how much a criminal enterprise is making, and try to build a case against them for tax evasion. Their money would be taxed just like yours and mine would be — when we spend it. From the Americans for Fair Taxation web site:

Today, the IRS will admit to 25 percent non-compliance with the tax code. However, this does not take into account the criminal/drug/porn economy, which equally conservative estimates put at one trillion dollars of untaxed activity. The FairTax will tax this - criminals love to flash that cash at retail - while continuing to provide the federal penalties so effective in bringing such miscreants to justice. The substantial decrease in points of compliance - from every wage earner, investor, and retiree, down to only retailers - also allows enforcement to concentrate on following the money to criminal activity, rather than making potential criminals out of every taxpayer struggling to decipher the current code. [Emphasis added]

One hundred thirty-five Representatives and 22 Senators are either for or leaning for the FairTax. Over 75 economists from some of the largest think tanks, financial institutions, and universities in the nation have signed an open letter to the President, the Congress, and the American People in support of the FairTax. It’s a good idea. Furthermore, as was stated earlier, it’s an idea whose time has come.

Visit the Americans for Fair Taxation web site, or contact your area representative. Write your Representative. Do whatever it takes to alleviate our tax burden, revitalize our economy, and make America the place to come for a fair shake in the global economy.

The FairTax Blogburst is jointly produced by Terry of The Right Track Blog and Jonathan of Publius Rendezvous. If you would like to join us, please e-mail Terry or Jonathan. You will be added to our mailing list and blogroll.

FairTax Blogroll

• The Right Track
• Publius Rendezvous
• Cao’s Blog
• Right Wing Nation
• Kim Priestap
• Don Surber
• Ogre’s Politics & Views
• Blue State Conservatives
• Oblogatory Anecdotes
• Euphoric Reality
• The Buzz Blog
• Slobokan’s Site O’ Schtuff
• Right Truth

Should this decision be construed as a setback or a restoration to those wishing to be treated equal?. In the knee-jerk reaction to solitary instances of violence, abortion protestors pro-life advocates were characterized and demonized, which led to limiting their freedom of speech. Thus, in lieu of the decision today, is it a setback or a restoration. Your humble pundit finds it to ba restoration.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court dealt a setback Tuesday to abortion clinics in a two-decade-old legal fight over anti-abortion protests, ruling that federal extortion and racketeering laws cannot be used to ban demonstrations.

The 8-0 decision ends a case that the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had kept alive despite a 2003 ruling by the high court that lifted a nationwide injunction on anti-abortion groups led by Joseph Scheidler and others. Anti-abortion groups brought the appeal after the appellate court sought to determine whether the injunction could be supported by charges that protesters had made threats of violence.

In Tuesday’s ruling, Justice Stephen Breyer said Congress did not intend to create “a freestanding physical violence offense” in the federal extortion law known as the Hobbs Act. Instead, Breyer wrote, Congress chose to address violence outside abortion clinics in 1994 by passing the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which set parameters for such protests.

Social activists and the AFL-CIO had sided with abortion demonstrators in arguing that lawsuits and injunctions based on the federal extortion law could be used to thwart their efforts to change public policy or agitate for better wages and working conditions.

Hat Tip - StoptheACLU

Though I have never personally been a fan of polling data, I do find the numbers intriguing and somewhat useful from time. With such, President Bush’s numbers have taken a turn for the very worse lately. As CBS News reports,

The latest CBS News poll finds President Bush’s approval rating has fallen to an all-time low of 34 percent, while pessimism about the Iraq war has risen to a new high.

Americans are also overwhelmingly opposed to the Bush-backed deal giving a Dubai-owned company operational control over six major U.S. ports. Seven in 10 Americans, including 58 percent of Republicans, say they’re opposed to the agreement.

CBS News senior White House correspondent Jim Axelrod reports that now it turns out the Coast Guard had concerns about the ports deal, a disclosure that is no doubt troubling to a president who assured Americans there was no security risk from the deal.

The troubling results for the Bush administration come amid reminders about the devastating impact of Hurricane Katrina and negative assessments of how the government and the president have handled it for six months.

In a separate poll, two out of three Americans said they do not think President Bush has responded adequately to the needs of Katrina victims. Only 32 percent approve of the way President Bush is responding to those needs, a drop of 12 points from last September’s poll, taken just two weeks after the storm made landfall.

Your humble pundits believes that this could be stifled if the Bush Administration would simply communicate to the American people. In many ways this Administration has done a tremendous amount of good, yet they perpetually allow their adversaries set the tone. On nearly every issue, the Bush Administration becomes defensive and reactionary, and I believe this correlates directly to the polling figures. With objectivity, issues such as the Hurricane Katrina tragedy and Gulf War II would not be ‘losers’ for President Bush, yet with his inability to take them head-on, they slip away from him.

Hat Tip - The Moderate Voice
 

“He spends more time thinking about my political future than I do,”

Does anyone believe this, for even one second?

As a parent with two kids in Texas schools, I have a pet peeve.  I really, really resent that their education is hampered by kids who can’t speak English.  I’ve seen classes that move mind-bogglingly slow as teachers have to work one-on-one with children who shouldn’t be there in the first place.  It’s enough to make me grind my teeth in frustration!

I am a big proponent of the immersion method of learning a language.  It is my firm belief that once in America, immigrants should learn our language, and the best way is by complete and total immersion.  When we lived in Mexico, we placed my son into a public school in the local village so that he could learn the language more rapidly.  I continued to teach him at home what he needed to know to keep his education above American standards, and his classroom experience was for language purposes only.   We asked for no special considerations, we just did what was necessary.  It was not easy, but it worked.

That is only one of the reasons it is so offensive to see our tax dollars paying for immigrants, many of them here illegally, to receive special dispensations because they can’t (or won’t) learn our language!  But why should they learn, when almost everything is bi-lingual anyways? 

Recently in Arizona, an activist judge has ruled that it’s not enough that American citizens pay for a free education for the children of illegal aliens, and it’s not enough that the classes are dumbed-down for non-English speakers, but now the taxpayers must pay exorbitant funds to provide special classes for children who don’t speak English!