Friday -- June 10, 2005
 THE FAIRTAX BOOK ... NUMBER THREE!
We're about 42 days away from the official release date of
The FairTax Book. It will hit the book stores at just about the same time
the report from the president's tax reform commission is released. Last
night we took a look at the Barnes&Noble website and were (to say the less)
pleased to see that The FairTax Book is the
No. 3 Bestseller on barnesandnoble.com! We're sitting there
right behind Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and David McCollough's 1776.
Neither my co-author, John Linder, nor I would be particularly upset to see us
move up to No. 1 on the Barnes & Noble bestseller list. Can't do it without
you!
Just click here to order! You'll receive your book on the official
release date! AND WHAT ABOUT THE FLAT TAX? Yes, I know. Some of the people that we would love
to have supporting the FairTax have weighed in in support of a flat tax instead.
So ... here's some flat tax vs. FairTax issues some of you may want to consider. - In 1986 the Congress reformed our tax code to
essentially give us a flat tax ... a flat tax with two rates. Fifteen
and twenty-eight percent. Most deductions were eliminated. Today's
tax code is the result of that effort.
- A flat tax leaves the IRS in place. You'll still
have to report your income to the IRS every year, and you'll still be subject
to audits.
- Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes? Still
there.
- Do you get 100% of your paycheck? No.
Withholding will still be there.
- Business taxes? Still there .. and they'll remain
embedded in the price of every good and service you buy, so you'll be paying
them.
- Corporate board meetings? They'll still spend an
inordinate amount of time working on the tax implications of business
decisions, rather than just basing their business moves on what's best for
their customers and shareholders.
- K Street lobbyists? They're still there too.
They'll still be drawing their six-figure incomes while they game the new
flat-tax for the benefit of their clients.
- Bring American businesses back home? Nope.
Business taxes are still there, so American businesses will still locate
their operations overseas in order to escape our punishing business income
taxes.
- Death Tax? Gift Tax? Still there in all the
flat tax proposals I've seen.
- Will the flat tax bring American wealth back home?
The latest estimates put $10 trillion of American wealth in offshore financial
corporations. There is only one reason that money isn't back here
working ... and that's our income tax structure. Will the flat tax bring
that money back home? Nope. The FairTax? Yup.
- What about the poor? They're not paying income
taxes now ... will they pay the flat tax? No way! But politicians
will still be looking for a way to raise taxes on the rich so that they can
relieve the poor, poor pitiful poor of the responsibility for paying for their
own Social Security and Medicare.
- Will all Americans be able to buy the basic necessities
of life without any federal tax consequences under the flat tax? No.
The FairTax? Yes.
- Will foreign visitors to our shores contribute to our
Social Security and Medicare programs under the flat tax? No. The
FairTax? Yes.
There's just a few points. If you have some good
counterpoints, let me know! From my point of view, the flat tax pales in
any comparison to The FairTax. THEY CALL THIS SOCIAL SECURITY REFORM? Now we're back to
talking about Social Security. President Bush has been talking about Social
Security since he began his first term. All of which has gotten him exactly
nowhere. The AARP, the Democratic party and other fringe groups have dug in,
Bush is down in the polls and the Republican Congress is all running from the
Third Rail. Millions of Americans "educated" in government schools have
actually rejected the idea of owning their own retirement accounts vs. having
those accounts owned and operated by the government.
Yet, there are some who
still want to fix the program (as if that's really possible.) One idea
Democrats used to kick around quite a bit was the idea of raising the retirement
age. People are living longer, and since you and your heirs don't get any of
your Social Security money when you die, it's in the government's interest to
pay you as little as possible for as short a time as possible. What a great
system, isn't it? You work all of your life, paying 15% into the Social
Security rat hole, get a lousy rate of return and then when you die, the
government steals all of your "contributions." Where do I sign up?
At any rate, apparently
some Republican Senators are kicking around the idea of raising the retirement
age. So much for Republican courage. Raise the retirement age!
Maybe we can get more people to die before they get their money back! Oh
.. and let's limit the benefits for our true achievers. That will teach
them to be successful while the rest of us worship failure! But notice the
media coverage. It always says the GOP or Republicans want to raise the
retirement age. It never mentions the Democrats who also want to raise the
retirement age.
Remember the template:
when a Republican is in the Oval Office, Social Security is solvent. When it's
a Democrat, the program is going broke. More
discussion in Washington on how to reform Social Security. There's a group
of Republican Senators who think that the solution is to limit benefits for the
wealthy and to extend the retirement age. HARRY THE EXTORTIONIST
Imagine if this had
happened during
the Clinton administration, Trent Lott had issued an ultimatum to Bill Clinton:
give us access to secret national security documents or else Bill Richardson
will not be confirmed as UN Ambassador. In fact, imagine if Lott even made the
statement: "no documents, no Richardson."
The Democrats, the media
and other assorted leftist groups would be outside the Senate with pitchforks,
demanding Lott's head on a platter. The Republican party would be derided as
obstructionist, unreasonable and "dangerous." The story would not go away. It
would be front page for days and days.
Yet, that's exactly
what's happening today .. but the players are reversed. Senate Minority Leader
(or as he likes to say "Democratic Leader," as if it makes him sound more
important) Harry Reid is
demanding the White House hand over records of
communications intercepts from the National Security Agency. Now keep in mind
that Bolton's nomination has cleared the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
It's time for an up-or-down vote. But Democrats, fearing he might win and
wanting to stick it to George Bush, aren't letting the vote take place.
Said Harry Reid: "You
can't ignore the Senate. We've told them what we've wanted. The ball is in his
court. If they want John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations, give us
this information. If they don't, there will be no Bolton."
The worst part? The
media is letting him get away with it. More good old-fashioned media bias.
Don't you love it?
THE IRAQ HOLOCAUST
 When a liberal runs out
of ideas, or becomes unable to defend their argument against a Republican, they
adopt one of the following three standard fall-back positions:
1.) Accuse your political
opponents of being a Nazi.. This has such shock value that it throws people off
balance and makes them forget the intellectual vacancy of the point of view you
are trying to express.
2.) Compare your opponent
to Adolf Hitler. If somebody is comparing you to Adolf Hitler, you must've done
something wrong!
3.) Bring up the
Holocaust. Somehow this is supposed to assign a degree of deep and heavy guilt
to people that will be so burdensome that your political opponent will quickly
submit and accept your argument.
Democratic New York
Congressman Charlie Rangel has chosen the course of action behind door number
3. It all started earlier this week when
Rangel compared the invasion of Iraq
to the Holocaust in an interview, saying: "It's the biggest fraud ever committed
on the people of this country. This is just as bad as six million Jews being
killed. The whole world knew it and they were quiet about it, because it wasn't
their ox that was being gored."
When confronted with his
marks, Charlie dug the hole even deeper: "I am saying that people's silence
when they know terrible things are happening is the same thing as the Holocaust,
where everyone would have me believe that no one knew those Jews were killed
over there." Not good.
So that's how you know
you've won an argument with a liberal. When they call you, compare you to or
accuse you of being a Nazi.
REDNECK SCRAP BOOK If you've got a pick-up truck, you too can have a
fancy swimming pool. We
starting to gather quite a collection of these. See the whole
Redneck Scrap Book.
READING ASSIGNMENTS
Next up to tee off on
Howard Dean:
fellow Democrat and Illinois Senator Barack Obama.
He's getting abandoned faster than 10 Cubans on a makeshift car boat.
Meanwhile,
Senator Richard Durbin is blaming the right wing
for Dean's comments.
David Limbaugh has an
interesting take on the Democrats that are distancing themselves from Howard
Dean.
He says these are the same people that have been slandering George Bush
for years.
Denzel Washington made a huge donation to the Fisher House,
which helps families of hospitalized military personnel. Will the rest of
Hollywood follow suit?
If you listen to the
media, you would think the U.S. Military is the one abusing the Koran down at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
But Max Boot says it's really the prisoners.
Has John Kerry, at long
last, released all of his Military records? Nope...all he did was release them
to one source: The Boston Globe.
Tom Bevan says the media treatment of Bush and Kerry
on this issue was striking.
Hillary is the nominee
for 2008, right? She has this one sewn up....but wait, some Democrats out west
say not so fast.
Robert Novak has more.
Rosie O'Donnell is
back...she was on The View shouting at The Baby Jesus. The reason? She's upset
with George Bush and Condoleezza Rice.
The Media Research Center has more.
Joel Mowbray says that in order to fight Islamic terrorism,
we'll need a strange coalition of different people from different backgrounds.
Interesting take.
Mona Charen talks about the new book by Thomas Sowell,
and calls it a must-read. That pretty much describes anything by Sowell.
There's a lot of noise
being made about illegal immigration,
but as Victor Davis Hanson points out,
there's quite a bit of ground not being covered (no pun intended.) What
a nasty drug habit. I'm going to refrain from making any remarks as they
might give away the ending. | 
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