Posted on 07/09/2007 9:31:01 AM PDT by Tireless Irate Minority
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OperationOffTheFence.org, a grassroots movement sweeping the nation, spreads to 15 states in the first week!
Deland, FL June 18, 2007 -- OPERATION: OFF THE FENCE! is the ONLY vehicle allowing citizens in all 50 states to send the same simple message to politicians at ALL levels of government over and over. “We want the Fair Tax! We want the Fair Tax Now! We want the Fair Tax AS WRITTEN” is the simple but effective message to politicians; the program can be implemented in just minutes a day.
As a wise man recently said, “Let your independence and good citizenship shine. The citizen and the citizen alone will make the Fair Tax a reality. The biggest, best, first step toward revealing the cost of our government is to show it on every sales receipt. If the Fair Tax were implemented at all levels of gov't (feder, state, local) the revelation of the cost of this enormous beast we've allowed to evolve might awaken the masses.”
The OPERATION: OFF THE FENCE! movement now has participants in 21 states as citizens get serious about tax reform, at both federal and state levels.
About the OPERATION: OFF THE FENCE crew: “We are a group of self-funded (making no profit, and asking for no money) volunteers dedicated to the passage of the Fair Tax Act of 2007 (HR25/S1025), a bill before Congress that will eliminate the IRS and all income taxes. The FAIR TAX plan will also repeal the 16th Amendment, the root of today's income tax.”
The battle cry is “Be an advocate: go to OperationOffTheFence.org now; tomorrow will be too late!”
“In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.” – Mark Twain
“It does not take a majority to prevail, but a tireless, irate minority, keen to set brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.” – Samuel Adams
Unemployment in accounting and tax preparation firms will soar.
Auditors will be kicked into the streets, homeless and hungry.
How could you?
And bump!
When John Cox, a conservative Chicago businessman, announced his presidential campaign, in Mar. 2006, he said that he supported the fairtax. This year, other candidates decided that Cox is right. On June 23, in an Iowa county straw poll, Cox received more votes than McCain and Giuliani, combined.
Please read Cox’s site, www.cox2008.com.
A couple fair questions about the fair tax could be this:
1) The economy generally doesn’t like shocks. How could the fair tax be implemented such that the shock to the economy is minimized? In other words, if you suddenly increase prices on the shelves through a sales tax, it is bound to affect personal behavior for at least some period of time while people figure out whether or not they are being affected on their bottom lines.
2) The economy is heavily dependent upon consumerism. If there suddenly becomes a more apparent financial incentive to save, will consumerism be hit, thus actually harming the economy through lowered consumer spending?
I don’t pretend to know the answers.....
Next, you’ll want to end employment for illegal alien document forgers.
Great news!
“I don’t pretend to know the answers.....”
Me either, but I’ll take anything over what we have now!
"Under the proposed national sales tax rate of 30 percent at the cash register, consumers would simply stop spending on anything but the barest necessities for a prolonged period of time," Pfister said. "This would have a ripple effect throughout the economy with an impact far beyond the retail industry. Even at lower rates, the psychological effect on consumer spending would be profound."
A study commissioned by NRF in 2000 found that a national sales tax would bring a three-year decline in the economy, a four-year decline in employment and an eight-year decline in consumer spending.
And from The Retail Industry Leaders Association:
Such a dramatic restructuring of the tax system would have a devastating effect on the retail sector of the economy and would create excessive administrative burdens for retailers. "This new tax would significantly depress retail sales and damage the economy by sharply curtailing consumer spending -- spending that has been driving the U.S. economy during the past several years," Kennedy said.
In the long run, both prices and wages will likely trend back down (adjusted for inflation from other causes).
Isn't that called deflation? Aren't economists more concerned about the devastating economic effects of deflation than inflation? And when wages and prices trend back down, will that include real estate? What would be the effect on the economy as a whole, and individuals, if home values fall?
With no corporate income tax, the United States will become the world's largest tax haven, business will no longer have such a powerful incentive to leave infrastructure, productive workforce, and markets of the US to find lower taxes overseas.
As we have seen, leaving the infrastructure and productive US workforce does not require leaving US markets.
As long as significant disparity exists between wages US labor is paid and wages in third world countries, off shoring manufacturing will remain attractive. A savings of 7.5% on the employer's share of payroll taxes ain't gonna do much to bring the cost of an American employee in line with the cost of a Chinese employee.
Because health insurance would also be subject to the sales tax, would employer provided health insurance also be taxed, or would it be exempt as a business expense? Would the employees share of insurance be taxed?
Us big spending baby boomers are getting ready to retire; do you think we will be spending our golden years paying a 30% sales tax on all our purchases in the good old US of A, or taking our nest eggs to a more retirement friendly tax structure?
Interesting to raise the issue of illegal immigration. I’m surprised that no one seem to connect these two issues. The Fair Tax could go a long way toward solving some of these problems.
First - everyone (even illegals) now pay taxes.
Second - Illegals can’t afford to work cheaper than citizens by avoiding withholding.
Third - illegals won’t get the prebate furnished from the government to citizens, so they actually pay more taxes.
and Lastly - the prebate can be the excellent carrot in a guest worker program. If you are a registered guest worker for some period (TBD) we’ll put your prebate into an escrow account that you get when you leave the country. Seem like a wonderful incentive to register and then to leave when the time is up.
Under the old Bracero program, a percentage of wages were with held to be paid when the worker returned to Mexico. Not too surprisingly, the money disappeared and the workers never collected. I doubt guest workers would fall for that twice.
To Lucysmom:
It sounds like the NRF hasn’t taken a few things into consideration:
1) that consumers will have ALL of their earnings to spend when the Fair Tax hits the products on the shelves.
2) that they will receive a prebate to compensate for the tax on the first $27K for a family of 4;
3) beyond that initial poverty level spending, everyone will have a CHOICE of whether they pay the tax based on how they choose to spend their money.
4) that there will be no more tax code related costs embedded in those product prices as is currently (the manufacturers’ income tax, their tax avoidance costs [tax lobbyists, attorneys], their tax compliance costs [accountants, CPAs, too large payroll depts keeping up with the paperwork]).
So the price of products won’t change all that much initially, and competition (the same force that determines prices now) will force prices lower as businesses are free to concentrate on their product and customer. Right now, they spend about 80% of thier time on business decisions with regard to the tax code implications.
Your employer sponsored health care insurance (as well as all other policys) have those embedded tax costs right now, too, so the above applies here as well.
The Retail Idustry Leaders Assoc. is relying on info from their lobbyists — lobbyists, just like everyone else who hasn’t done his own homework, think that any drastic change to the tax code will threaten their jobs, so they mislead their employers. Many lobbyist jobs will have to end under the Fair Tax, namely the tax lobbyists.
Those tax lobbyists, and everyone else earning a living at the cost of American economic freedom, will have to go find a real, productive job. But don’t worry, there will be plenty of jobs for them (and for your CPAs and accountants, Stallone) from which to choose under the Fair Tax.
And, it isn’t just cheap labor that lure US companies offshore; its mostly the tax code. Intel’s last plant was built offshore - the reasons: tax code (31% weight); cheaper labor (just 8% weight).
An incentive for the American people to increase their savings rate (currently negative 1%) would be great for the US; right now we (the gov’t) borrow about $4 billion a DAY, and virtually all of that debt belongs to foreigners. Let’s hope they don’t all get cash in happy at the same time. The Fair Tax will give us a chance to get out of this mess we’ve allowed.
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