Fair Tax
Today, Orange Park had their Autumn Festival and I manned the Fair Tax booth for three hours. We had a listing of all Florida's US Representatives and their stand on the Fair tax to distribute. My congressman is for it, but the two senators from this State do not support it. Only a third of our representatives are for and we are trying to get help to sway the others. There are three Florida representatives that are against and they are all on the Congressional Black Caucus.
While talking to people, I was amazed at how many people have listened to Neil Boortz on the radio. Those who have listened were all for the fair tax and wanted to help. In case you don't know who Boortz is, he claims to be a member of The Church of the Painful Truth. And that is what he sets out to deliver to his listeners, the painful truth. Neil wrote the book, "The Fair Tax."
Some people had heard of the fair tax but did not know much about it. They were surprised when I told them that the State of Florida already has such a tax. That's right, we do not have an income tax in this State. We run this State on something else, a fair tax. None of these people had heard of the "prebate", a check given every month to all citizens no matter what their income. We did tell them that their paycheck would no longer have deductions taken out for: income tax, medicare or social security. They would get their whole pay.
The mix of the people at the Fair were about 20% black; curiously, none of them stopped at our booth. An Obama booth was nearby, and some with Obama stickers on their shirts stopped to inquire and give support.
Two couples stopped by and one of the guys said he was tired of paying an accountant so much money to do his taxes every year. He has a small exterminating business and said he has to keep too many records just to prove everything to his accountant. All four of them signed to support the Fair Tax. I mentioned he was just like Joe the Plumber and he said: "Yes I am."
I was on my feet for over three hours and when I got into the car to drive home I realized how tired I was. My feet were hurting and it was a relief to sit. Strange how I can do an hour cycling, an hour aerobics and an hour of Silver Sneakers and not feel this tired. Then again, I get this tired when I go shopping with Pat.
posted by Marcel at
4:39 PM
12 Comments:
I'm confused. If every one gets a prebate check, how come nobody knew about it? What does the fair tax involve? Pay as you use for services?
By
Gretchen, at 8:10 PM
Gretchen, That is a very good question, I knew you should get into these issues more often. If you will go to www.fairtax.com it will open up to a list of topics. The forth topic down is "Americans For Fair Taxation": the first heading under it is "About", click on that. It is one page and it reads in about five minutes of so. The Fair Tax is presented in a nutshell. Note the reference to the prebate.
By
Marcel, at 9:44 AM
Gretchen, Whoops, that would be www.fairtax.org and you will see, on the left side, "What Is The Fair Tax?" There is a line below that says, "Read More About the Fair Tax" and that will take you to the page I mentioned earlier.
By
Marcel, at 9:57 AM
I also thought it was a good question, but I thought the good question was 'If every one gets a prebate check, how come nobody knew about it?'
marty
By
Anonymous, at 11:54 AM
Marty, There are many people who are against the Fair Tax. All of them are quite willing to mischaractorize what it is and add confusion into understanding it. Some will lie about what it is to insure it does not get voter support. However, this plan is already in Congress as House Bill 25 which originated in 1999. It is presently hung up in the House Ways And Means Committee.
By
Marcel, at 1:17 PM
IT'LL NEVER HAPPEN!!!
By
John Beauregard, at 6:24 AM
I looked on the website, and I'am not real impressed with their math. They show someone making Z$125 a week paying $25 in taxes, I meant to run that through my payroll software today, but work got in the way. Also I did not see anything that explained the prebate. (I am assuming that the reason no one you spoke to knew about the prebate was because Florida does not have a true Fair Tax system, just a demo version). I looked at all of this on Sunday and thought about it on my drive down, hundreds of questions ran through my mind. And I finally realized that this is why I am voting for Obama, because I don't know the answers, and I don't want to know the answers to everything. I want to trust the people in charge to do what is best for everyone as much as possible.
By
Gretchen, at 11:19 PM
Gretchen,
1)The Fair Tax is not dependant on any political party. Some Democrats have stated that they would never vote for it until there is a Democrat in the White House because they would not want the Republicans to get the credit for it.
2)There is a calculator on the web site by which you can enter your personal situation and see how it would affect you.
3)The tax is not applied on how much you make, it is applied on purchase of new goods or services. 4)You are right, Florida does not have a system as defined in House Bill 25. We do not have a State income tax as other states do. This State has not yet progressed to a prebate, but it should.
By
Marcel, at 4:09 PM
Wow! Gretchen, really? You really don't want to do the work to find out what's right for you and your family? You would rather leave that up to a politician? Why did you ever move out of your parent's house?
People should be excited about the possiblity of being able to choose how much they pay in taxes. It's really is fair too. If you think people who are "rich" should pay more than someone who is "poor" this is totally the system for you. Which is more 23% of a Civic or 23% of a yacht? Who is more likely to buy a yacht? You guessed it...a "rich" person. So, that means the "rich" will carry more of the burden right. How patriotic!
By
Anonymous, at 6:13 PM
I don't like Uncle John's pessimism but, I understand why he says what he does. If the congress were to pass the Fair Tax it would be a HUGE shift in power from their hands to ours. It would be so much easier for the common person to understand and therefore our reps in congress would not longer be able to trick average people with complicated tax plans.
Also, Papa, you touched on something that I think needs reinforcement. The Democratic reps don't want to support the bill while a Republican administration could take the credit. Everyone who reads the bill and understands it(even current Dem Reps) knows how this would boost our economy like nothing else will.
It is worth putting a little more effort into understanding. This is one of the few cases where a little effort and a little bill will offer an enormous reward in your future.
Tracy
By
Anonymous, at 6:04 AM
Tracy I am so proud of you for understanding what is going on in this election, smart cookie. And you BETCHA I'm voting for Saxby Chambliss.
Gramma
By
Anonymous, at 3:06 PM
It's because it's something you don't want to be doing.
Pat
By
Anonymous, at 4:15 PM
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