Free Republic

THE28THAMENDMENTPROPOSAL.ORG ANNOUNCES SEARCH FOR NATIONAL AND STATE MANAGERS; TWO OF TWELVE NATIONAL COMMITTEE BOARD POSITIONS FILLED EL PASO, TX, JULY 30, 2009: The National Committee Board for the grassroots initiative known as The28thAmendmentProposal.org announced a national search today for a National Administrative Coordinator, National Press and Public Relations Specialist, and State Program Managers and State Press and Public Relations Specialists in each of the sovereign united States. The National Committee Board is preparing for a major expansion in the organizational structure over the coming weeks, in advance of announcements of all of the National Committee Board positions. The28thAmendmentProposal.org is in...

Much of the discussion revolving around the decades-old flat tax proposal disregards reality, and often implies that at the same time such a proposal is put forth the amendment cannot also address some of the flaws or drawbacks in such a system. One argument comes from those who seem to have an unrealistic goal of completely abolishing a federal tax system altogether. Often these arguments are wrapped in some kind of discussion of natural rights, Constitutional restraints, and the like; they however seem to ignore two key points: - One, our founding fathers provided authority to the Congress to spend...

What can I do? I’ve written and called my representatives, and get a form letter, a stock answer or an argument. I’ve worked on campaigns. I’ve marched in Washington, and joined various groups. I’ve made my voice clear, and appear to be part of this overwhelming majority who have done the same in vain, constantly ignored, berated, pandered to, condescended, and held in contempt. When one set of bums is thrown out after the people have had enough, it seems another set of bums replace them; often it makes little difference which party they belong to other than the degree...

THE28THAMENDMENTPROPOSAL.ORG LAUNCHES NATIONAL GRASSROOTS CAMPAIGN EL PASO, TX, JULY 24, 2009: A new grassroots campaign launched a public website and their proposal for passage of an amendment to the US Constitution today in El Paso, TX. THE28THAMENDMENTPROPOSAL.ORG National Committee announced the activation of the website explaining the proposal, and a national search for a number of positions to be filled in support of the effort. Interim National Chairperson D. Brian Carter briefly outlined the aims of the amendment proposal intiative: • “The proposal is a mechanism for the American People and the States to reclaim much of the liberty and...

Karen Bass is an unlikely tax cutter. She's the Democratic speaker of the California State Assembly, a fierce defender of the labor movement, and an advocate for repealing a constitutional provision that requires that tax increases pass the state legislature with a two-thirds majority. But as California faces a budget crisis that defies efforts to resolve it, there is a woman-bites-dog story developing with Ms. Bass at its center. By the end of the month, a commission she pushed to create is expected to recommend that the state adopt a flat (or at least flatter) personal income tax and cut...

"Taxes are the price we pay for civilization" ... Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. The U.S. Tax Code is a perennial whipping boy, and rightly so. It's unfair and monstrously complex. Some would like to replace the entire Tax Code and the IRS with a totally new system. One such idea is the so-called FairTax, which is essentially a national retail sales tax. Although Bruce Bartlett in "FairTax, Flawed Tax" and others have roundly criticized this idea, here are my main reservations about the FairTax: The FairTax treats savers badly. Under the current system, savings have already been taxed. But with...

Maybe the Governator is realizing that conservative ideas are the only ones that will save his state. ...It's time for new ideas and bold initiatives because Lord knows that spending money we don't have has been a disaster. It would be nice to smack Obama upside the head with reality if this approach works even a little bit.

Could the flat tax come to California? Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said today that he would like to see such “radical” proposals come out of a commission now studying an overhaul of the state’s tax system. The governor told the editorial board of the Sacramento Bee that he hoped the commission would not be afraid to propose something like “a 15% straight tax.” “That’s the kind of radical, daring kind of a proposal that I want to see on the table so we can look at it and say, ‘Oh, let’s study this, maybe that is the way to go,’ ”...

Could the flat tax come to California? Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said today that he would like to see such “radical” proposals come out of a commission now studying an overhaul of the state’s tax system. The governor told the editorial board of the Sacramento Bee that he hoped the commission would not be afraid to propose something like “a 15% straight tax.” “That’s the kind of radical, daring kind of a proposal that I want to see on the table so we can look at it and say, ‘Oh, let’s study this, maybe that is the way to go,’ ”...

If ever a state were ripe for bold economic reform, it would be New Jersey, which is shedding jobs and is in perennial budget crisis despite one of the highest tax burdens in the land. So why is Chris Christie, the GOP front-runner in the state's 2009 gubernatorial race, taking cheap shots at the flat tax? Mr. Christie is a former U.S. attorney who did yeoman work putting away the state's many political thieves. But he seems to be running scared in next month's Republican primary, when he faces former Mayor of Bogota Steve Lonegan, who is proposing to scrap...

If there’s a positive to the leftward economic lurch among our political class, it has to do with the certainty that the imposed initiatives will fail. No matter the political party or supposed ideology overseeing it, when politicians seek to share the gains of the productive, their efforts come up short. Simplified, collectivism applied is collectivism’s capitulation. So while there’s good reason right now to be pessimistic, there’s also reason to be optimistic given the certainty that we’ll eventually move in the other direction. On the tax front, whatever the result of President Obama’s attempts to move the cost of...

. . . If opening day is the best day of the year for professional athletes, then April 15 -- tax day -- is probably the worst. Especially now that 20 of the 24 states with franchises in at least one of the four major pro leagues -- the NFL, NBA, NHL and Major League Baseball -- have laws that require visiting athletes to pay state income tax for each game they play there. Considering that top-level athletes in football, basketball, hockey and baseball now make an annual average salary of $2.9 million, that means big bucks for states such...

Our current income tax system, inaugurated in 1913 with the adoption of the 16th Amendment, began with a 1 percent tax on taxable income above $3,000 ($4,000 for married couples). A series of surcharges of up to 6 percent were applied to higher incomes, with the maximum rate being 7 percent on taxable income over $500,000. Less than 0.5 percent of the population ended up paying income tax. From these humble beginnings, the income tax soon blossomed, thanks to World War I, into a tax with a minimum rate that doubled and a maximum rate that reached 77 percent on...

For Dale Allee, a second-generation cattle rancher in southern Colorado, the idiom that nothing is certain but death and taxes is now a reality. "I just turned 80 last week. You know what that means? That means I'm not going to be around here very long, and somebody's going to have to pay those taxes," said Allee, who fears federal estate taxes will thwart his plans to pass his 4,200-acre Pueblo County ranch to his children. Land-rich but cash poor, Western ranchers are lobbying Washington to exempt them from the estate tax, which can force heirs to sell their inheritance...

It’s not the Gettysburg Address- 268 words. It’s not the Declaration – 1300 words. It’s neither the Constitution - 5000 words, nor the King James Bible at 773,000. Not even the stimulus package at 1073 pages. Andy G, a soldier in Iraq and future congressman, tells why this very important US document needs to be changed.

If President Obama wants to help the economy enormously - and make life simpler for countless Americans - he has a powerful tool at his disposal: the flat tax. My advice for him would be to push for an efficient, low-rate flat tax to replace the entire current maze of confusing, complicated, counterproductive federal taxes. If he succeeds, the results would be stunning. Obama certainly has both the political mandate and content of character to get this done. Remember, too, that the idea has a long pedigree in Democratic politics: Its origins lie with Presidents Harry Truman and John Kennedy...

There’s a lot of talk in Washington about yet another so-called “stimulus” package. If the next one is anything like the last one it will simply be a mechanism for taking money away from people who aren’t spending it the way politicians would like, and transferring it to people who will. Our soon-to-be ruler feels like adding some grandiose public works projects (raking leaves in a National Forest) to the list. Let’s break away from these political stimulus ideas for a few minutes and study an absolutely brilliant idea from Texas Republican Congressman Louie Gohmert. Now Louie hasn’t been around...

Let me state this up front; the current system of progressive taxation represents a philosophy of discrimination that would, if the same philosophy were to be applied to any other social strata, be abhorred and denounced as a relic of the past. Those who endorse such a system are guilty of a contradiction so grievous and obvious that one must question whether their approval is the result of blind ignorance or malicious intent. To forcibly confiscate wealth, and make no mistake that is exactly what our current system does, from the citizenry in a manner that holds one citizen to...

Casselberry, FL The Winter Springs Civic Center 400 N. Edgemon Ave Winter Springs, FL. 32708 We will meet this month at The Winter Springs Civic Center. There will be a presentation of the FairTax followed by a Q&A and a discussion of recent volunteer activities. For more information, please contact Larry Walters at 407-949-2959. Date: Thursday, August 14, 2008 Time: 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM This event does not require an RSVP. Registered users can request event reminders. Register

WHILE AMERICANS focus on the interminable Clinton-Obama celebrity death match, Sen. John McCain is using clear-headed, compellingly crafted speeches to propose surprisingly bold, free-market ideas. With one huge exception, the Arizona Republican advocates more limited, open government as his Democratic rivals promise tax hikes and an even-busier state. Voters should welcome this stark contrast. On spending, John McCain would rule with a tight fist. "There will be no more subsidies for special pleaders -- no more corporate welfare -- no more throwing around billions of dollars of the people's money on pet projects, while the people themselves are struggling to...

John McCain, looking through a crystal ball to 2013 and the end of a prospective first term, sees "spasmodic" but reduced violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden dead or captured and government spending curbed by his ready veto pen. The Republican presidential contender also envisions April’s annual angst replaced by a simpler flat tax, illegal immigrants living humanely under a temporary worker program, and political partisanship stemmed by weekly news conferences and British-style question periods with joint meetings of Congress. In a speech being delivered Thursday, McCain concedes he cannot make the changes alone, but he wants to...

This is the latest tax reform poll that I have seen. This is from an interesting website in which members develop their own polls.

The German government's purchase of data stolen from a Liechtenstein bank has reinvigorated longstanding debates about privacy, law enforcement and international relations. Much of the fallout has followed predictable patterns. Some argue that Germany's richest citizens should be brought to justice for failing to comply with the tax laws, while others point out that it is unseemly for a nation to spy on a peaceful neighbor. The conflict between Germany and Liechtenstein also has triggered a broader debate about tax competition and the role of so-called tax havens. The Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is trying to use...

In 2001, Russia enacted a flat tax rate of 13 percent; a reform so popular it has since been adopted by countries such as Serbia, Ukraine, Georgia, Romania, Slovakia and Macedonia, says the Healthcare Economist. But is the flat tax a good thing? According to the authors of a new study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, it is: Studying Russia, the authors found that the flat tax lead to a significant decrease in tax evasion. This is likely due to the fact that lower marginal tax rates decreases the incentive to avoid reporting income. Further, if there...

It's never fun to admit failure. But Russia's 13 percent flat tax forces me to confess a certain degree of incompetence. For 10 years, I've been working in Washington to replace our convoluted tax code with a simple and fair flat tax. But as every taxpayer can attest, my efforts have not borne fruit. Yet in Russia, President Vladimir Putin -- the former head of the Soviet KGB -- implemented a flat tax in 2001. Not only a flat tax, but a flat tax with a 13 percent rate, four percentage points lower than the supposedly "radical" plan espoused by...

Yes, I've read the legislation. No, I don't listen to the radio show. No, I'm no stupid, idiotic, dishonest, evil, an employee of the IRS, spouse of an IRS employee, or part of a conspiracy of journalists against the middle class. Yes, other conservative economists who have asked tough questions about the FairTax warned me to get ready for a gusher of hate mail. Yes, the fact that the FairTax faction (after reading a torrent of insulting email, that word seems right to me) defaults to abusive speech from the beginning means that they are a movement of zealots with...

At a time when some voters are asking how the religious views of candidates will shape their policies, a professor’s discovery of how little tax the biggest landowners in her state paid to finance the government has prompted some other legal scholars to scour religious texts to explore the moral basis of tax and spending policies. The professor, Susan Pace Hamill, is an expert at tax avoidance for small businesses and teaches at the University of Alabama Law School. She also holds a degree in divinity from a conservative evangelical seminary, where her master’s thesis explored how Alabama’s tax-and-spend policies...

Gigot: Well, Fred Thompson has his flat tax, and Mike Huckabee has his fair tax. But who's got the better idea, and what are the other GOP presidential hopefuls proposing? Here with a closer look at the candidates' tax plans, Wall Street Journal columnist and deputy editor Dan Henninger, assistant editor James Freeman, Washington columnist Kim Strassel and senior economics writer Steve Moore. So, Steve, Fred Thompson has embraced this so-called voluntary flat tax plan. You like it, I kind of like it. Tell our viewers why. Moore: Well, the flat tax is happening all over the world. There are...

Mike Huckabee appeared tonight on CNN's The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer and once again tried to laugh away his record as governor of Arkansas. Huckabee should stop cracking jokes about raising taxes and start taking responsibility for his actions. Excerpted quotes from Mike Huckabee on The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, November 29, 2007 HUCK CHECK #1 : Huckabee claimed that if you dismantle the IRS and implement the Fair Tax, make "the federal government operate more efficiently...[and] get rid of a $10 billion industry." In reality, Huckabee's plan replaces one government bureaucracy with another. * Reality: "It is...

We ended the last century with America's economic might at its zenith, with Americans at their most optimistic, and with nearly all who endeavored to make the most of their opportunities and talents getting ahead in life. John F. Kennedy's declaration that a rising tide will lift all boats was alive and well. Middle-class Americans generate little or no national savings. We've had four straight years of rising productivity and falling incomes. Many Americans are earning less, while the costs of a middle-class life have soared: In the last five years, college costs are up 50 percent, health care up...

Lord knows I have blasted Fred Thompson a few times, but now he has followed his gutsy and philosophically solid Social Security plan and his on-target defense plan, and his hard-nosed immigration plan, with a tax-reform proposal that is deservedly earning plaudits from conservative experts. I repeat my contention that (apart from a certain Huckster) the Republican field this year is in many ways a font of riches rather than a big disappointment. There are at least four candidates whom I personally could support with serious enthusiasm, and another several (counting ones who already have dropped out) who I would...

I've been beating up on Fred recently but like what I see in his tax plan. This strikes me as smart: Expand Taxpayer Choice. The Thompson plan would give Americans greater choice about how to pay their federal taxes. This plan is based on a proposal developed by the House of Representatives Republican Study Committee that would provide taxpayers the option of remaining under the current, complex tax code or opting for a simplified, flat tax code. The simplified tax code would contain two tax rates: 10% for joint filers on income of up to $100,000 ($50,000 for singles) and...

WASHINGTON DC -- Thompson’s appearance on Fox News Sunday this morning was billed by his campaign as an opportunity to rollout a new tax reform proposal, but after talking about taxes for less than three minutes, Thompson shifted the conversation towards the tax benefits of his Social Security plan. Host Chris Wallace then took that as a cue to discuss various criticisms of Thompson’s campaign made by his rivals and Fox’s own conservative pundits.

President to veto flat tax rate and abolition of TV and radio licence 13.11.2007 16:18 It seems that the PO-PSL coalition will have to forget about their pre-election promise of a painless introduction of flat-rate taxation, and they will also face problems getting rid of the TV and radio licence. Michal Kaminski, head of the president’s office told Polish Radio 3 on Tuesday morning that Lech Kaczynski would veto such laws if they were passed by the parliament. Kaminski reminded that the president had previously declared that he would "stand up for the rights of ordinary people" and therefore would...

Anti-war presidential candidate Ron Paul says his campaign is about "restoring the vanishing American dream." And he is criticizing what he calls "the cartel controlling the banking and monetary system" in the United States. Fresh off his third-quarter fundraising surprise of $5 million, Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul says the libertarian "revolution" he has started is growing across America. Paul told conservative activists at the "Defending the American Dream Summit" in Washington, DC, that the conference would be more aptly called the "Defending the Vanishing American Dream Summit." The Texas congressman said his Republican rivals often talk about a "flat...

Fiscal Policy: In a free-market revolution sweeping central and eastern Europe, Albania and Bulgaria will become the latest ex-communist states to embrace a low-rate flat tax. To have lived under socialism is to appreciate capitalism. In America, cutting tax rates is an ideological issue. In the former Soviet satellites of Europe, it is increasingly not an issue at all — so obvious is it that it gives people better lives. It began with Estonia in 1994, when Mart Laar as prime minister, thinking he was just emulating the capitalist West, made it the world's first nation in modern times to...

September 6, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- The Economic Freedom Network, a global association of research and educational institutes, has just issued its annual report, which rates only one former communist country among the world's top nations with policies that support economic freedom. That country is Estonia. The report has high praise for Estonia, whose economy grew by over 11 percent in 2006. It notes that Estonia performed better not only in comparison with its Baltic neighbors, Latvia and Lithuania, but also placed ahead of countries like France and Germany -- not to mention Belgium, Ukraine, or Russia, which are near the...

It wasn't too long ago that Albania was joked about as the last Communist holdout, a kind of Marxist museum. Not anymore. The small Balkan country is about to halve its personal income-tax rate, starting August 1, to a flat 10%. The corporate rate is also slated to drop to 10% in early 2008. Albania's flat tax is the latest sally in an intramural tax competition fueling growth in the former Communist bloc. The trend began with Estonia in 1994 -- then-Prime Minister Mart Laar had read Milton Friedman's "Free to Choose" -- and now extends to a dozen nations....

In the post-Soviet era, several former communist countries have enacted pro-capitalist, free market policies that are fueling tremendous economic growth and freedom. This week, Estonia's former prime minister explained the economic miracle that is his country - a country of 17,400 square miles and 1.4 million people with an economy that outshines many of its larger European neighbors. Mart Laar became Estonia's prime minister in 1992. His country was then in shambles, having been ruled by the Soviet Union for 51 years. Shops stood abandoned, housing and highways were crumbling, infrastructure was crippled. It was, in some ways, reminiscent of...

People often laugh when I say on the campaign trail that the tax code should be taken behind the barn and killed with a dull axe. In fact, one man in Iowa was so excited by this proposal that he presented me with an axe before I finished my remarks (fittingly, I was speaking in a barn). There's a reason people welcome my proposal to kill the tax code -- it's a monster of inscrutable complexity, and I say that as a former lawyer who took every tax law class I could. Today's tax code -- which is sixteen times...

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani ran into a buzz saw of opposition Saturday when he explained his opposition to a flat federal income tax. Giuliani addressed a group of about 500 people in a standing-room only crowd at a town hall meeting at the University of North Florida, answering questions on a variety of topics from Iraq and Iran to Social Security and his plan for tax cuts. Several dozen people wearing white flat tax T-shirts and hats and carrying signs jeered when Giuliani, in response to a question, said he would not be in favor of...

Giuliani Jeered for Opposing Flat Tax Jul 7 02:16 PM US/Eastern By RON WORD Associated Press Writer JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) - Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani drew jeers Saturday for saying he does not think a flat federal income tax is right for the country. At a town hall meeting, several dozen people wearing white flat tax T- shirts and hats and carrying signs expressed their disappointment when Giuliani said he would not favor a flat tax. "I don't think a flat tax is realistic change for America. Our economy is dependent upon the way our tax system operates," the...

The test on tax reform by Richard W. Rahn(commentary from the Washington Times) If politicians tell you they favor "tax reform" and "tax simplification," what do you think they mean? The fact is most politicians, including the current presidential candidates, say they will give us tax reform and simplification, but what they mean differs widely. Each candidate will strive to try to define those words in such a way that will attract more voters than they repel, and some will be sincere (like President Reagan), and some will be less sincere (like the first President Bush and President Clinton). The...

Ronald Reagan said it back in 1983: "Our federal tax system is, in short, utterly impossible, utterly unjust and completely counterproductive... [it] reeks with injustice and is fundamentally un-American... it has earned a rebellion and it's time we rebelled." But what politician would rail against the country's irrational, insufferable, infernal Internal Revenue Code today, except perhaps for ceremonial purposes? Some in Congress have made distinguished careers leading the innocent and unwary through its byzantine ways and byways, occasionally constructing secret passages to favor the special interests they represent. Whole industries like accountancy and tax law have been built on it.

The tripod on which Giuliani is basing his campaign is his reputation as “America’s Mayor� from 9/11, his record as Gotham’s most successful chief executive and – most promisingly from a free market perspective – as an advocate of supply-side economics, which endorses tax cuts to boost economic growth. In this campaign, however, Giuliani is more committed to supply-side economics than ever. He never misses an opportunity to tout his belief in it or make clear his disgust with high taxes. In a recent interview he repeatedly declared, “I don’t like taxes.� He has also committed himself to a “massive...

Rudolph W. Giuliani accepted the endorsement of Steve Forbes yesterday and embraced Mr. Forbes’s signature issue, saying he liked the idea of a flat tax — something Mr. Giuliani denounced when Mr. Forbes was running for president. If there were no federal income tax, “maybe I’d suggest not doing it at all, but if we were going to do it, a flat tax would make a lot of sense,” Mr. Giuliani, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, said yesterday, standing beside Mr. Forbes at the Nasdaq MarketSite in Times Square in New York. But he said it was not...

Chris Edwards is director of tax policy studies and author of Downsizing the Federal Government. On St. Patrick's Day, we wear green and celebrate the culture of Ireland. I'll be down at the pub tomorrow, but I'll be toasting Ireland's success at attracting greenbacks -- all that investment flowing into the Emerald Isle and the resulting prosperity. Ireland has boomed in recent years, and it now boasts the fourth highest gross domestic product per capita in the world. In the mid-1980s, Ireland was a backwater with an average income level 30 percent below that of the European Union. Today, Irish...

Sam Brownback, Tiahrt, and the Fairtax Video - Kansas Days 2007 

WASHINGTON (AP) A proposal to impose a flat tax is making a comeback, it's part of Kansas Senator Sam Brownback's campaign for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. Pushed by conservatives in the 1990s, a flat tax calls for earned income to be taxed at the same rate instead of the current system of using different tax brackets for different incomes. Brownback calls the current tax code ``dreadful and incomprehensible.'' Best known for his conservative stances on social issues, Brownback also touts himself as the Republican presidential prospect with the truest conservative ideals on fiscal issues as well.