Today's Nuze: April 14, 2006

Friday -- April 14, 2006

THE FAIRTAX BOOK --- REVISED AND EXPANDED

In just over two weeks - on May 2nd - the soft-cover edition of The FairTax Book will be released. The book contains revisions to clarify points about the FairTax, and a 5000 word "afterword" to bring you up to speed on the latest status of H.R. 25 and to answer some of the critics who have surfaced in the last six months.

Though the furor over the hard-cover edition of The FairTax Book has died down, interest in the FairTax has not. The president's tax reform commission turned out to be a complete flop -- recommending nothing more than more of the same. In the meantime H.R. 25 is adding sponsors in the congress, and House leadership has promised a vote on H.R. 25 in the coming months.

Many of you ask what you can do to move the FairTax forward. I have a simple, and, on the surface, a self-serving suggestion on how you can do just that. Buy the soft-cover edition of The FairTax Book. Don't just by one, buy several. Spread them around. Send them to your friends. I would ask you to do that today ... buy them today. Go to Amazon.com and order a few copies. For less than $100 you can get 10 copies to spread among your friends. Business owners could buy a copy for every employee! We had just that happen with several business owners when the hardback came out. I can remember several days when Belinda and I were hidden in a conference room signing hundreds of books for this or that corporation that bought a book for every employee.

Members of Congress were already shocked last year to see The FairTax Book, a book on taxes, debut at No. 1 on the New York Times Bestsellers list. If the soft-cover edition of the book has a similar success it will send an even-stronger message to Washington. The people have studied this idea for tax reform, and they like it. It's not just a flash-in-the-pan.

Now .. I see that my asking you to get out there and buy the soft-cover edition might sound a bit self-serving. After all, I'm earning royalties here, aren't I? Well, the same pledge I made for the hardback edition stands for the soft-cover. Every penny of royalties, after expenses, will go to charity. With good sales of the soft-cover edition when all is said and done I will have contributed over a half-million to charity. I'm not in this to make money. I'm in this to change the tax code. Help me.

Here's your link for ordering the soft-cover edition from Amazon.com. Order now and you'll have your books within a day or two of the release date. There's an even fancier link at the bottom of the page!

THE FAIRTAX DEBATE

As you know, I was in New York City earlier this week to debate Yale Law Professor Michael Graetz on his tax reform plan vs. The FairTax. C-SPAN was there to record the debate, and now we have the times for thee showings over the weekend. The FairTax Debate will be shown on C-SPAN 2 this weekend at the following times:

Saturday evening, April 15th, at 7:00
Sunday , April 16th, at 2:30 and again at 10:30 a.m.

If you don't have C-SPAN, you can still watch online here. Look for the live streams section and it'll be on C-SPAN 2. During the debate you will hear Professor Graetz say something about the FairTax putting a tax on home mortgages and servicemen's pay. I had never heard that before in my life, and didn't respond. You'll get the facts on that next week on The Neal Boortz Show and here at Nealz Nuze.

AND JUST HOW BIG IS YOUR TOTAL TAX BITE?

The Georgia Public Policy Foundation steered me to a rather interesting (though not shocking) facts on taxation in America. The source is an article by Michael K. Evans posted on IndustryWeek.com. Do you have any idea just how huge your total tax load is? Take a look at these facts.

First -- and this fact is now beyond debate -- all taxes are paid by individuals. All taxes are levied against wealth, and only individuals hold wealth. For those of you who attended government schools, and are thus a little slow on concepts like this, corporations are not wealthy. Corporate shareholders hold that wealth. Individuals. So ... for the sake of Evan's article, he says that the taxes are paid by employees or proprietors, the owners of small businesses. Now .. the tab:

Total federal income taxes collected last year: $932 billion. That works out to $6,650 per employee.
In addition to income taxes, the federal government collected another $1.286 trillion in taxes, mostly Social Security taxes.
The total state and local tax burden amounts to $1.14 trillion.
The grand sum here -- paid by employees and proprietors -- is $3.358 trillion. That's $3,358,000,000,000.00
This works out to $24,000 per employee.
The total compensation earned by employees and individual proprietors last year was $8.2 trillion.
This means that 40% of income goes to taxes of some sort.
That rate, of course, is much higher for those earning higher incomes. Much lower for those in low income brackets.
Nice, huh?

Now ... grab this fact. Where did most of this money go? National defense? Homeland security? Hardly. In terms of Federal expenditures you have:

$495 billion for national defense.
$272 billion spent by the federal government for the purchase of goods and payment of employees
$1.69 trillion sent to someone else. $1.69 trillion in income redistribution.

This is just fine with those on the left who believe that income is distributed, not earned. For the rest of us? Well, I don't know about you, but I have a wee bit of a problem with all of this.

GENERALS GUNNING FOR RUMSFELD

More news this morning that more retired generals are out for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The general who commanded the 82nd Airborne in Iraq had this to say about Rumsfeld: "I really believe that we need a new secretary of defense because Secretary Rumsfeld carries way too much baggage with him." He complained that Rumsfeld micromanaged the generals.

Always looking for a reason to pile on the Bush administration about Iraq, the media jumped all over this. The drumbeat has already started: Rumsfeld has to go. Where have we heard this before? For almost Bush's entire tenure in office, people have been calling for Rumsfeld's scalp. This is no different.

Because the people complaining now are retired generals, are we supposed to treat this any differently? Nope. In a lot of ways, the Military is not unlike any other branch of government...a bureaucracy with generals always jockeying for position and playing politics. Also, it's important to remember that retired generals are frequently wrong.

Remember the "retired generals" that were on the air leading up to the invasion of Iraq, predicting 10,000 American casualties on the first day? That didn't happen...not even close. The White House has defended Rumsfeld, no doubt ensuring that he'll be around for some time to come.

THE WORTHLESS UNITED NATIONS

This business with Iran underscores the fact that the United Nations is a useless and basically anti-American organization and a complete waste of our taxpayer's money. Iran says they are going to enrich uranium and be a nuclear power, no matter what anyone says. The U.N., like the U.S. says Iran shouldn't be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. So what's the United Nations' solution?

They send their head nuclear appeaser, Mohamed ElBaradei, over to Tehran to negotiate with the mullahs. His conclusion: "I don't think the issue of enrichment right now, emotional as it is, is urgent. So, we have ample time to negotiate a settlement by which, as I said, Iran's need for nuclear power is assured and the concern of the international community is also put to rest." The message: we'll just cut a deal with Iran.

So the U.N., always very trusting of the insane Islamic terrorist dictators, will make some worthless agreement with Iran where they agree not to make a nuclear weapon. How many other countries have they done this with, yet those countries went right on with their nuclear ambitions?

Not only is the U.N. a complete waste of taxpayer dollars, they're a bunch of suckers -- or would that be "we're" a bunch of suckers?

GAS PRICES HEADED UP

It's not even Memorial Day, and already the headlines are proclaiming loud and clear that gas prices are going up, up, up. They have indeed shot up in recent weeks, with the national average for the cheap stuff hovering around $2.72 a gallon. Oil is over $69 a barrel. So what should people make of this?

Absolutely nothing. First of all, people should spend time complaining about things they can actually do something about. Second, the price of gasoline is artificially high. Not because oil companies are conspiring to jack up the price, but because government is doing everything in its power to keep the price of gas high.

For instance, we could drill for more oil. More oil domestically produced would reduce our dependence on foreign sources of energy. But the leftist enviro-crazies won't allow that. Drilling in ANWR? Forget it. Then you have the issue of refining the oil into gasoline. Not one single refinery has been built in the last 30 years.

The result: the refineries we do have are running at full capacity. They can't produce enough gasoline to keep up with demand, so the price shoots up in the summer. It also doesn't help that those refineries have to produce several different blends to appease the environmentalists around the country.

Then there's taxes. People don't notice because it's rolled into the price of a gallon of gas, but between federal, state and local taxes, the government is taking 40-50 cents a gallon. So just remember....as you fill up your SUV this summer and pay $3.50 a gallon, the silent hand of government is what is causing the price to be so high. No other reason.

REDNECK SCRAP BOOK

This prom dress comes complete with everything a girl needs tofully enjoy her prom night, safely.More in the Redneck Scrap Book.

READING ASSIGNMENTS

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To give you an idea of just how outrageous eminent domain abuse is, take a look at how they hand it in China. This is a video of the Chinese police using brutality to drag people out of their houses. See what happens when you don't comply with the government's desire to steal your land?

Something is wrong when the Comedy Central cable network won't allow a show to use images of the Prophet Muhammad, but has absolutely no problem with a cartoon of Jesus defecating on George Bush. The message is clear: you can make fun of Christianity, but never Islam.

The Bush administration is still pushing the idea that the U.S. economy needs illegal aliens. Scott McClellan continues to sell crazy from the podium in the White House briefing room. He claims the administration has sent back 6 million illegals. Right.

To those who say building a 2,000 mile-long wall across the border with Mexico is too expensive, Ann Coulter has an idea. Hire illegal immigrations to do the work...at a discount. In fact, she says the government missed the boat with all of these protests...they could have rounded people up to do the work then!

Guess who helped the Iranians further their desire for a nuclear weapon? None other that former President Bill Clinton. A new book says it was the 42nd president of the United States whose administration gave the Iranians the blueprints.

A lot of people made the comparison between the rights of illegal aliens and the civil rights struggle back in the 1960's. But as Charles Krauthammer explains, there's lots of key differences, beginning with the fact that illegals are owed nothing.

Ed Feulner, President of the Heritage Foundation, takes on corporate welfare. He says some $60 billion a year, more than we spend on homeland security, was doled out by politicians to corporations.

President Bush says Iran's development of a nuclear weapon is unacceptable. If that's the case, argues Bill Kristol, then just what exactly are we going to do about it? How can something be unacceptable if we tolerate it?

Victor Davis Hanson explores the different terms the media has for illegal aliens. For instance, there's the always-used "undocumented worker." Also, don't forget "guest worker." Hanson prefers "illegal alien."

The illegal immigrants who are protesting about how their rights are being violated have one thing wrong. David Limbaugh says illegal immigrants have no rights...because, well, they're here illegally. Imagine that!

Pat Robertson responds to recent criticisms And, besides, he's not "jowly."

New Orleans mayoral candidate chooses to use a picture of herself in front of Disney's version of the French Quarter rather than the real thing.

DEA agent goes "above and beyond" to drive home gun safety lesson. Well, okay, he just didn't check to see if the gun was loaded. But an important lesson was learned, wasn't it? Now he's suing over the tape's release.

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