Neal Boortz was in Indianapolis last night promoting the FairTax book. He was at a book signing in Castleton. I hope that you attended if you have questions about the FairTax. I didn’t because I had a little work around the house to do, and I’m sold on it already. Mr. Boortz is also broadcasting from his Indianapolis affiliate this morning, so you can catch him on WXNT – Newstalk 1430. Yes, I know it’s hard to believe, but there are still stations that broadcast on the AM band.
Some other news about the FairTax is not so good.
Yesterday, the “President’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform” recommended against using the FairTax. Sort of. They recommended against using something that’s almost, but not completely, unlike the FairTax, and then they called this something the FairTax. This shows one of two things: the panel members are too deep into the pockets of the lobbyists, or they’re incapable of doing their jobs.
Here’s a quote:
Using Treasury Department data, panel member Ed Lazear, a Stanford University professor and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute, estimated that a national sales-tax rate would need to range between 64% and 87% in order to replace revenues from the corporate and personal income tax while preserving exemptions on drugs, food, clothing and other goods and services typically excluded from state sales taxes.
The problem with that is that the FairTax doesn’t provide for “preserving exemptions on drugs, food, …”, which is why it’s only 23%. The purpose of the FairTax is to simplify the tax code AND to make it fair. Exemptions do neither. Once you open that door even just a little tiny bit, everyone will come up with a reason why they deserve an exemption. This quickly makes it unfair and unbalanced. The pre-bates cover the money currently exempted, but in a much fairer and cleaner way.
If the panel is unwilling or incapable of understanding that simple fact, then the panel is a farce and needs to be drop-kicked to the moon and replaced with people who will actually do their homework. That way they’ll understand the costs and find out who benefits and who doesn’t from the FairTax and be able to properly evaluate it.
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