The tea party rallies across the country have brought the FairTax to the national stage stronger than ever before.
They won’t give me enough space here to explain the FairTax to you. (Their loss.) Simple explanation? Every single tax you pay to the federal government, from income taxes to payroll taxes to death taxes, goes away. Federal income taxes on businesses are gone. These taxes are replaced — and that’s a key word, replaced — with an inclusive retail sales tax. This means the sales tax would be included in — not added to — the price of a consumer product or service, and would be just about equal to the amount of embedded tax you will find in that product or service today.
Here’s your kicker: No U.S. household would pay the tax on the basic necessities of life. This would mean that under the FairTax every person in this country would be able to purchase each month’s basic necessities — food, clothing, shelter, transportation — before they pay one single cent to the federal government. You pay the government after you’ve taken care of your family.
That’s your CliffNotes version. I know your curiosity has been piqued, and you can learn more by reading “The FairTax Book” and “FairTax, The Truth” by, ahem, me and U.S. Rep. John Linder, or you can hop online to www.fairtax.org.
The FairTax is capturing a lot of attention lately. One tea party group, the Tea Party Patriots, conducted an online survey asking people what they would like a new Congress to accomplish. No. 1, by a 2-to-1 margin, was “enact the FairTax.” At the tax reform rallies I spoke before in Washington, D.C., last week, the FairTax signs and T-shirts were everywhere. ABC News host John Stossel invited me to be on his show on tax day to explain and discuss the FairTax. If you haven’t heard of the FairTax by now, you’ve been spending too much time watching “Lost” or “Entertainment Tonight.” This tax reform plan has captured the imagination and support of millions of Americans — Americans not in government.
There is one huge problem with the FairTax. It’s easy to demagogue. So easy, in fact, that even Democrats can do it. That is precisely what’s going on today.
This week we learned that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is going to use the FairTax as a wedge issue to drive between Republican candidates and the tea party activists. Ryan Rudominer, a spokesman for the DCCC, said: “This radical new tax hike from the House Republicans and their candidates would have a devastating impact on middle-class families.” Tax hike? Tell me: How in the world can one tax that exactly replaces a whole stack of other taxes be a “tax hike?” See how easy it is to demagogue?
But wait! There’s more! The Congress Blog, from The Hill (a Capitol Hill newspaper), recently asked, “Should Republicans push a ‘fair tax’?” One answer was proffered by one Alan Abramowitz, a professor of political science at our own Emory University. Abramowitz responded; “Every objective study of this has shown that the actual tax rate would have to be much higher than advertised to make up for the revenue that would be lost.” Really professor? Is that so? Question: Are you ready to back up that position in front of, say, one of your political science classes at Emory?
Ah yes. There’s a challenge coming. I’m just down the street, professor. I can be on the Emory campus by, say, 1:15 p.m. Why don’t you get your political science students together in a theater and you and I will debate the FairTax. I’ve done this before, you know. The last time was at CUNY with a former assistant treasury secretary who was teaching tax law at Yale. That should be a pretty good warm-up for a little tete-à-tete with you, don’t you think?
Awaiting my answer, dear readers.
Neal Boortz’s column appears every Saturday. For more Boortz, go to boortz.com
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