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Michael Reagan Becomes Honorary Chairman of the FairTax National Victory Campaign
Michael Reagan, the eldest son of President Ronald Reagan, has been named the Honorary Chairman of the National FairTax Victory campaign according to officials at FairTax.org.
"This is a natural step considering how strongly Michael has worked to keep alive the legacy and meaning of Ronald Reagan’s work and influence on public policy," said Ken Hoagland of the FairTax National Victory Campaign.
"My father understood that the income tax system works against the nation’s best interests and primarily benefits the political class," said Mr. Reagan. "I am convinced that had it existed in his time, my father would have been a strong proponent of the FairTax."
"This new year of 2010 is the 30th Anniversary of my father’s successful campaign to replace Jimmy Carter as President. Then, as now, the nation was mired in a deep economic recession, our nation was viewed as in decline domestically and internationally, and the American people were looking for real, positive and substantive change in the direction of our country. My father, Ronald Reagan, offered and went on to provide just that, real and positive change for the United States. The FairTax will provide the same kind of free enterprise driven economic growth, simplified tax system, reduced taxes to honest Americans, millions of new jobs and a realistic way of dealing with the massive and rapidly growing deficit."
Reagan noted that there have been tens of thousands of changes to the tax code since his father lead the charge for tax reductions and a simplified system. “The special interest lobbyist-driven changes that have undermined his work to simplify the tax code prove that it is a beast that cannot be tamed-- only replaced,” said Reagan. "I remember my father saying, ‘Extreme taxation, excessive controls, oppressive government competition with business, frustrated minorities and forgotten Americans are not the products of free enterprise. They are the residue of centralized bureaucracy, of government by the self-anointed elite.’ It is clear to me that if the FairTax existed then, he would have been a FairTax champion."
"This will remain a non-partisan national movement to win enactment of a far better national tax system," said Reagan. “Like my father, the FairTax campaign has long said that such big changes must be driven by Americans across the political spectrum,” he said. “I join many Democrats as well as Republicans and independents who believe the FairTax will cure a host of national problems and lead to a new era of robust economic growth".
Reagan pointed out that the FairTax will attract trillions of dollars of foreign investment into the U.S. economy and bring back trillions more in American investments currently in offshore accounts and investments, expand the national tax base dramatically to include taxation of those who illegally avoid taxation or benefit from special tax breaks to the politically powerful, and lift the weight of federal taxes and payroll deductions entirely from millions of poor and elderly. "It is the shortest path to full economic recovery and millions of new jobs, ending Congressional corruption of the tax code and providing significant tax relief to the middle class", he said. "The FairTax ends the special benefits enjoyed by the political class which has so badly hurt our economy."
National FairTax Victory Campaign official Ken Hoagland said that Mr. Reagan will lead a revitalized national effort to bring the FairTax into every American household and to Congress. "We have started with a petition to the House Ways and Means Committee to hold a fair and balanced hearing about pending FairTax legislation that now has 65 co-sponsors in the Senate and House of Representatives."
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It's time for a second tax revolt
More than 200 years ago a new idea about the rights of individuals and the rights of government began as a tax protest in Boston Harbor.
"No taxation without representation" was the rallying cry that led to the new concept that all government power and authority should derive from the consent of those governed. Is a second American tax revolt now needed to restore that noble but increasingly tattered idea?
Somehow, these many years later a new American aristocracy made up of both parties is taxing generations of future citizens, not even yet born, in order to secure mind-numbing levels of national debt today. With government debt now totaling more than $500,000 per household, the voice and best interests of the average American seem lost. We have taken a destructive national path of spending beyond our means that retards job creation, shreds responsible fiscal policy and undermines the pursuit of happiness itself.
The second American tax revolt might very well be found in HR25, the long pending FairTax legislation that most in Washington love to hate. The FairTax replaces all federal taxes on income with a simple and transparent tax on personal retail consumption. The FairTax raises the same revenues now raised but in a way that helps the economy rather than hurting it and, most importantly, in a manner that restores the role of the American citizen.
Today our federal taxes are hidden from plain view through withheld payroll taxes and by embedding tax costs in the price of American goods and services. The relationship between personal wealth and the cost of government has been effectively hidden, making almost impossible any real check and balance on government spending and self-defeating debt. For candidates from both parties, the promise of new spending buys elections and to many citizens it is "free money" that is being thrown at real problems and needs.
The FairTax ends embedded tax costs, puts the cost of the federal government on every receipt and shifts national taxation away from what goes into the economy--work, savings and investment--to what comes out of the economy--consumption. The FairTax expands the tax base so that nearly every American sees a tax reduction. The average tax bill (adding together Social Security/Medicare and income taxes) now amounts to more than 30 percent of what is earned. The FairTax caps taxation at no more than 23 percent of what is spent. In essence, those who spend more pay higher taxes without exceptions granted by Congress to the favored few with tax lobbyists.
The FairTax protects the poor and middle class in several ways. First, a monthly "prebate" paid to every family reimburses the FairTax paid on retail spending up to the poverty level, wiping out federal taxes on those at or below the poverty line while also eliminating the highly regressive FICA payroll tax. For a middle class family of four, the prebate allows more than $28,000 of federal tax free spending a year on top of an overall tax reduction. Advanced economic modeling shows that the poor and middle class are the biggest beneficiaries of the FairTax in terms of tax reduction.
By eliminating all federal withholding and payroll taxes, the FairTax brings taxation into the open so that average Americans can fairly debate the cost/benefit of devoting personal wealth to so much government spending. It is a desperately needed awareness if we are to control our government.
At the same time, shifting away from taxing labor, manufacturing, investment and upward mobility itself will make the United States the most favorable tax environment in the world. This will bring trillions of dollars of private investment, now offshore, into our economy. Without borrowing against the future earnings of our offspring, this private investment creates jobs, better benefits and a new era of economic growth where productive American workers are again in high demand.
The FairTax doesn't pit the poor against the rich or Wall Street against Main Street. While every economic level benefits under the FairTax, the poor and middle class see the greatest immediate tax benefits. If there are losers they are congressional committees who can no longer sell pieces of the tax code, illegal immigrants and those in the $1.5 trillion a year underground economy who become taxpayers as consumers and foreign producers who now enjoy a tax advantage over American manufacturers.
But because the FairTax ends the $1.5 billion a year tax lobby business along with congressional power over the tax code, it will take another tax revolt to trump the narrow self-interests of Washington insiders. The good and bad news is that a relative few, but politically powerful and influential, Americans profit richly from the corrupted tax system. With all their profits and power, can they be bested by hometown Americans across the political spectrum? Only if we remember that the first American tax revolt gave us that right.
Hoagland is chairman of the FairTax national campaign and a long-time Houston resident. His book, The FairTax Solution, goes on sale in March 2010.
Originally published here: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/6767069.html
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