Congressman John Linder on the Fair Tax
Wednesday, 12 July 2006 | 121 readers so far
by MsUnderestimated
Folks, I’m telling you… after I was lucky enough to find out about this article in the Gwinnett (Georgia) Business Journal this week, I was asking myself that very question. Why in the heck doesn’t Congressman John Linder run for President? I listened to the 45-minute interview for the article, and read along with the transcript. You know what amazes me? This is a true common-sense man. It’s no wonder he’s been a shepherd for relieving the United States of the 16th Amendment for the past 10 years. You might not recognize his name, but you will definitely recognize the name of the book he co-wrote, and the legislation he wrote - “The Fair Tax.”
Not in history that I can I recall has there ever been a book to open at #1 on the New York Times best-seller list and stay there for two weeks in a row, which was about the United States Tax Code. Boring, eh? Well, aparently you haven’t read “The Fair Tax.” John’s gotta give his hat off to Neal Boortz, Libertarian talk-show host here in Atlanta, who wrote most of the book. Neal’s depth of knowledge of the tax code and its history, the abuses and wastes of the system as it stands, and his wry sense of humor make it not only a very easy read, but a pleasurable one, as well.
As many of my readers know, I attended the first ever Fair Tax Rally , and it was held here in Gwinnett Co., Georgia. I already wrote my review, and I just wish you all could have been there with me to witness the electricity of the event. I wrote in that article that “It’s Possible,” and it is. All you have to do is believe - and be brave enough to want to help affect change.
If the Fair Tax passes, it will be the single largest transfer of power from the Federal Government back to the people in the history of this country. I feel like I am part of that 1% that affects change, as John Stossel pointed out at the rally. I’m one of those “big potatoes” that Herman Cain spoke of. And you can be, too. Only if you believe.
John Linder has also taken a strong stance on illegal immigration, and recently proposed that we adopt the exact same immigration laws as Mexico, verbatim, and he truly believes that what is good for the “Fox,” is good for the “Eagle.” I do not disagree with him one iota, and I wrote about it in another post.
Everything that I’ve heard and read before today made me swell with hope and pride - but after I listened to this latest interview, I’m even more filled with determination and FIRE, and the motivation to do whatever it takes to help this man succeed in whatever endeavors he chooses. I also plan to encourage him to run for President, although I’m not sure of his aspirations. He’s quite successful as a Republican Georgia Congressman. I am going to try to schedule him as a guest on my show on Wide Awakes Radio, so keep your fingers crossed.
John is right on the money about curtailing government spending, fighting terrorism, true tax reform, securing the borders with no amnesty, and a whole host of other issues. The following is an excerpt from from the full transcript of his interview with Christopher Lancette of the Gwinnett Business Journal:
Let’s jump right into it - explain exactly what the FairTax is.
The FairTax is a bill that would repeal all taxes on income - no more corporate income tax, no personal income tax, no payroll taxes, no self employment tax - no gift tax, estate tax, capital gains tax or alternative minimum tax. Any tax that is pegged to income would be gone, as would the IRS. We would replace that with a consumption tax - a tax of retail sales on personal consumption at final purchase of new goods and services.
Currently, the average taxpayer gives the government 33 cents of every dollar they earn. In our system, they would give the government 23 cents of every dollar they spend. Then we would provide to every household - every household - a cash distribution at the beginning of every month that would totally untax them up to poverty-level spending.
And what’s the status of the legislation?
Well, it has 54 co-sponsors, which is the most it has ever had. We’re going to meet very soon with the leadership of the House and Senate, and the Speaker (of the House - Dennis Hastert) has gotten the President of the United States to agree on meeting with me for an hour. And I believe we (Republicans) have to have a big idea to run on.
You say that all corporate taxes would be repealed. How would that benefit businesses?
Businesses spend a considerable amount of time complying with the tax code. We paid $265 billion in 2004 just filling out IRS paperwork. We spend another $150 billion calculating the tax impact implications of a business decision. There is not a businessman or woman in America that does not think about the tax implications of any choice they want to make. Under our system, we would effectively give the American people a $400 billion tax cut - letting them keep in their pockets all that money they spent on compliance. Businesses would for the first time be able to consider their employees, their customers and their shareholders - and not worry about the government.
The estimates we’ve heard are that compliance costs could decrease by as much as 90 percent. Is that accurate?
That’s very accurate. The only compliance left would be the compliance of the tax collectors - the retailers and the doctors and the dentists who have to collect the tax on personal consumption. Their compliance costs would be about 10 percent of the current compliance costs.
The event you and WSB radio talk show host Neal Boortz held at the Gwinnett Convention Center filled to capacity. Did the large turnout surprise you?
Yes it did. I expected to have a good crowd. We looked for different venues and that was the only one available that had 4,500 seats. We think we turned away 4,500 people. We think another several thousand people heard on the radio that the event was closed down, turned their cars around and went home.
I want to change tracks a little bit … The Republican-controlled White House and Congress have increased federal spending beyond the level of any Democratic administration. Do you think your party has dropped the ball on federal spending?
Put me in that group of disappointed people. We’ve had a Republican majority for 12 years. We have never had a conservative majority. We have 25 Republicans in the Northeast who’ll side with the Democrats on spending issues every time. We saw that it took us a long time to pass our budget - we passed it by one or two votes this year because our moderates wanted us to increase spending as much as the Senate did. So we have had a really difficult time.
When you’re in the majority, you have to pass spending bills to keep the government from shutting down, and you have to make those compromises. I spent 16 years voting for people in the minority - 14 years in Georgia and the first two years in Washington. That’s the easiest thing in the world - you just vote no and go home. When you’re in the majority, you’ve got to pass the bills. I’ve cast more miserable votes in the last 13 and a half years that I did in the previous 16.
You’ve been married to your wife, Lynne, for more than 40 years. How did you meet her?
That’s a long story. I’d finished playing a county-league softball game on July 16th of 1963. My brother and I were standing on a corner having an ice-cream soda when this car pulls up, asking for directions to Cedarwild Lodge in Minnesota. It was a town of 800 people and it’s hard to get lost and we thought, “That’s kind of cool, let’s go out to the lodge.†So we asked why she was in town and she said she’d just dyed her friend’s hair and it had turned blue, so she was sent to town to get another dye to try to fix the problem. So I said to my brother, “Wouldn’t you like to see the gal with blue hair?†So we drove out to Cedarwild Lodge, said we wanted to see the gal with blue hair and was introduced to my wife who, at the time, was quite angry about her blue hair. And three months later we were married. That was 43 years ago this year.
What’s the most frustrating part of a congressman’s job?
Inertia. Alan Greenspan told me that the toughest job is to overcome the inertia in this town. You get set in your ways, just go along step-by-step. My guess is that part of my problem in getting this bill moving is that 90 percent of the Congress has not even looked at it and doesn’t even know it’s there. Just to get them to think, “This is possible, this is do-able, the American people are ready for this,” is very frustrating. We tend to get so occupied in doing what we must do that we don’t have time to do what we should do. And that’s frustrating.
As you look back not only on your political life but your personal life are there people that stand out in your mind that made a real impact on you?
One who really moved me was Ronald Reagan. I spent more time with him than with any president. I traveled on his campaign plane in 1976 whenever he was in the Southeast. Every time I’d see him he’d forget who I was. But he knew who he was. I’ll take the guy who doesn’t know me but knows himself any day.
If every state had congressmen like John Linder, this country would run smooth as glass, and there would be a no-nonsense way in dealing with any obstacle that comes our way. It would be a good idea to not only read this partial transcript in the article, and here, but also leave your feedback because I’m sure it will be passed along to Mr. Linder.
Again…. why doesn’t this man run for President? I’d definitely vote for him. And, Herman Cain as Vice President! Oh, yeah, and Neal Boortz could be in charge of Homeland Security. Look out U.N., Human Rights Watch, ACLU, and all the other bleeding-heart, international law-loving, peace-at-any-price crowd idiots! You all would be in for quite a surprise. HAHAHA!
If you don’t want to listen to it on my blog, you can download the full MP3 for podcast. Whichever way you choose, I urge you to listen intently to the entire interview… then you tell ME that John Linder isn’t someone you’d like to have in the White House soon!?!? Talk about flying under the radar! Well, my radar is up, and Linder is on it - I’m going to urge him to fly like the eagle he is!
Listen to the interview here.
1 July 12th, 2006 at 3:09 pm
kitanis says:
Ok.. I am SLOWLY warming up to the Fair Tax..
But it will ONLY work if we can get the house and senate to limit government spending. But the fair tax does look interesting and should bear more discussion on implementation.
2 July 13th, 2006 at 2:25 pm
kitanis says:
Tevor.. I listened to the Congressman Linders interview there. I would now honestly say that I am converted to supporting the fair tax.
But the sad part is.. the whole issue is ignored by the press and congress because of one thing.. Greed. If this concept ever became law. Alot of wasteful spending in the federal government would end:-)
3 July 13th, 2006 at 3:59 pm
Trevor says:
I think the Fair Tax has more of a chance than people give it credit for. People have a deep-seated fear and hatred of our current system of taxation for many good reasons.
The only people who love the current tax system are corrupt politicians, socialists, those who make their living from the complexity of the tax code and those who don\’t pay anything into it. Everyone else thinks the system is pure shit because it is pure shit.
4 July 14th, 2006 at 8:27 am
Elizabeth says:
Trevor, out of curiousity, I looked up your idol Neal Boortz. (I’d never heard of him before your blog). The first think I discovered is that he’s one of those obnoxious radio talk show hosts. The second thing I discovered is that he used to work for Lester Maddox! I thought to myself: Wasn’t Lester Maddox a notorious racist?!Here’s a quip from Wikipedia that I suspect is accurate:
“Maddox also distributed racist pamphlets in his restaurant that included statements such as, “One drop of Negro blood in your family could push it backward 3,000 years in history.”"
5 July 14th, 2006 at 9:47 am
Trevor says:
Elizabeth,
So because Neal once possibly worked with a racist he is a racist? Hate to burst your bubble of intense dislike for “irrritating talk show hosts” but Boortz has a black co-host named Royal. If Neal Boortz has a problem with black folks, then I would be shocked as hell - why would he hire a black engineer.
I also fail to see what views on race have to do with views on taxation. The two are completely unrelated, unless you’re one of those who think that black folks should get tax breaks because they simply cannot keep up with white people. That idea, in and of itself is racist.
I’ve worked for a**holes in the past and I work for a few right now in the military. Does that make me an a**hole by proxy? I think not. If I’m an a**hole, it’s on my own merits.
The whole guilt by association attempt didn’t play very well.
6 July 14th, 2006 at 4:24 pm
Elizabeth says:
Trevor, people don’t always have a choice in who they work for. But people certainly have a choice in whose ideas they follow, so your analogy there doesn’t hold up. Nor does your comment about Boortz’s black co-host. Howard Stern has a female co-host, but that doesn’t make him less sexist. That in itself means nothing. Actually, there are women who have internalized sexism and blacks who have internalized racism. This phenomenon is well known among women and among black people; black people especially have come up with some choice terms for such people…This phenomenon is also well known to people who study psychology and sociology. I realize it is not taught in website design classes, so you may be unfamiliar with it.
As for the taxation argument, I’m still studying it. I don’t believe it would be a progressive tax as Boortz and others claim. Sales taxes are virtually always regressive. The “poverty” exemption is laughable because the official poverty level in this country is so low that almost no one who actually works legitimately for a living qualifies for it (and thus most officially poor people do not currently pay income taxes). Meanwhile, many, many people who hold full-time jobs are, for all intents and purposes, poor. I’m talking about the families of four who live in one-bedroom apartments. They spend virtually all of their money on necessities. They do pay income tax of course, but much less than what’s paid by the rich. In comparison, the “fair tax” would tax the necessity spending of the poor, and the luxury spending of the rich without distinction…there’s something about that that doesn’t seem quite right…should food and Mercedes-Benzes be taxed the same? Should people who are struggling to pay the rent face higher food and clothing prices, while the rich ponder whether to buy that new Gulfstream jet, or the used one? Would there really be no sales tax on the second-hand Gulfstream jet, or on the second hand Mercedes Benz, which is actually worth more than the new Hyundai? I also don’t understand: Would there then be a sales tax on real estate purchases, and on college tuition? These are things that people buy…if so, would it not discourage such purchases, which are in fact purchases society should be encouraging individuals to make? There’s a lot here I’m having trouble figuring out; maybe you can explain it to me..
7 July 14th, 2006 at 4:46 pm
Trevor says:
Yes, they do. Slavery and indentured servitude ended a long time ago.
Whether or not Neal Boortz is a bigot or racist (he is neither) is irrelevant to the Fair Tax, so I’m not sure what the value of bringing it up in the first place was. It would be like saying that people shouldn’t use my new light bulb that lasts 3 times longer because I masturbate, and masturbation is a sin. Completely irrelevant.
Actually, I think it is your ideas about what poverty is that are laughable. I grew up in Haiti, where real poverty exists.
Should food and Mercedes Benz be taxed the same? Yes. I think one standard for every item is long overdue. It keeps the class warlords from being able to whine about stealing money from some groups to give to other groups.
New home sales would be taxed ONE TIME. That’s my understanding. Newly manufactured or built items would be taxed ONCE ONLY and then they would no longer be subject to taxation.
Society can encourage people to make purchases by non-violent methods it wants too, but government shouldn’t be in the business of doing that.
Anyone who is famialiar with the giant abortion that is our current tax code should be able to see the natural result of allowing people to meddle too much in “collecting” money from other people for “good use.”
Some taxes may be a necessary evil, but the system we use to collect them should be kept as simple as possible. Otherwise you end up with the type of government theft we have today, which makes corporate graft pale by comparision.
This issue is a keystone issue for me as a voter and political activist, much like gun rights.
Any system based on blatant income redistribution with sliding scales in inherently dishonest and basically amounts to armed theft.
8 July 14th, 2006 at 4:50 pm
Trevor says:
One thought for my readers - if you’re a regular commenter here and haven’t had a chance to read the Fair Tax book but would like to, drop me a private e-mail and I will send you a copy as an early Christmas present.
9 July 14th, 2006 at 5:28 pm
Elizabeth says:
Trevor, I am familiar with Third World poverty; I lived in India…I don’t see your point here though; poor people here should consider themselves lucky because they don’t live in India? That’s like saying people shouldn’t worry about our civil liberties being threatened here, because at least they didn’t grow up in the Soviet Union…I don’t find those type of arguments convincing.
As for thinking food should be taxed and a used luxury car shouldn’t…I just don’t even know what to say in response to that.
10 July 14th, 2006 at 10:07 pm
Trevor says:
My point was that “poor” Americans live in a land of golden oppotunities compared to people who are actually living in poverty. Claiming anything else after having lived somewhere where people actually starve to death makes you sound silly, in my eyes.
Elizabeth, you’ve made it very clear that you think it’s OK to take money away from people who have earned it and redistribute however you see fit to people who haven’t. That makes you a socialist in my book. Socialists like to take things that are not theirs. That’s a nasty habit.
If we’re going to tax people we need to do it fairly. The only way to do it fairly is to make the taxes apply across the board to everyone and everything. I realize that such a concept goes against everything you stand for and I’m willing to accept that some people feel the money I make is part of a giant pot that they should be able to dip into depending on how they see the world, but I’ll fight that sort of thinking with every breath I have until I’m dead or until taxes are applied the same way to a man or woman who earns $1 an hour, $10 an hour, $100 an hour or $1,000 an hour.
What you do with your money is up to you. Stay out of my pockets. Ultimately, that’s the message I’m working on.
11 July 14th, 2006 at 11:16 pm
RevJim says:
Trevor, I first heard this plan being discussed at the New Mexico State Libertarian Party convention in 1990. I hafe been advocating it whenever the subject comes up. The problem is that people seem to think that bureaucracy is a good thing and that the fair tax wouldn’t ever generate enough revenue. I say cut the bureaucracy , and it will work. However, no government has ever said they are getting enough money…
My point is–aside from thanking you for publishing this–Congress will never cut itself off from the benis its members receive from creating bureaucracy.
12 July 15th, 2006 at 6:51 am
Harley says:
I applaud Bill Gates and Warren Buffet! Not only do they recognize the need for the estate tax, they also recognize the value of giving of their wealth to help others.
For those who become rich by greed alone, society needs a mechanism to moderate their unjustified gain.
In my daydreams, I think everyone with gross annual income over $250,000 should be taxed at 100% on the excess. Too much wealth is a burden, and anyone who seems to need more is a poor manager.
13 July 15th, 2006 at 9:51 am
Trevor says:
Dad,
You and Elizabeth both dream of a socialist world where everyone is just and kind and fair all the time. The truth is that humans will have to evolve into something else before that happens.
In the meantime, do-gooders have no right to say to people who committed no crimes - you have too much money. We realize you earned it legally but we’re going to take it away anyhow. That’s just bullshit. It’s theft. It’s morally wrong. How can you correct a moral wrong (greed) by committing another moral wrong (theft).
Theft is theft no matter how you dress it up. Some taxation may be necessary but as soon as you start basing the taxes on how much money a person earns or amasses you enter into the realm of theft.
If a man who is worth $1 billion dies, and you take 80% of his life’s work to redistribute via bureaucrats, then you must take 80% from the man who who dies with $1 in his pocket too. Or you are a thief.
14 July 15th, 2006 at 6:46 pm
Elizabeth says:
“do-gooders have no right to say to people who committed no crimes - you have too much money”
One last time: Who makes the laws? Our government (our lawmakers) are corrupted by money. You seem to think, Trevor, that the “government” and “rich people” are in opposition to each other, when much of the time, they are working together, to steal from the rest of us! Did you ever hear Leona Helmsley’s famous comment, about how taxes are for poor people (I’ll get the exact quote later).
So Trevor…your father and I agree? Could it be that some of your views are a hold-over of adolescent rebellion? Sometimes, older people do know more…
I can think of an argument in favor of the Fair Tax though…it would probably bankrupt the federal government. Given who’s in charge of the government right now, and the misadventures they’re cooking up, that might not be a bad thing…
One more thing Trevor: I’m dipping into your pocked? I beg to differ. You are the one who is living off my taxes. I’m self-employed…my psychotherapy patients choose to come to me; insurance companies choose to contract with me…but I had no choice to pay for the Iraq War, or your salary!
15 July 15th, 2006 at 6:55 pm
Elizabeth says:
Addendum: The quote was actually “only the little people pay taxes” although this was never verified. Helmsley did serve 18 months in prison, but despite this and lawsuits, she remained one of the world’s richest people in 2004:
http://www.forbes.com/maserati/billionaires2004/LIRIC5T.html
16 July 15th, 2006 at 6:59 pm
Trevor says:
I realize in your mind Elizabeth, that rich people are both the source of most of society’s ill and rich veins of money to be mined as necessary to fund social projects you agree with. I think you’re dead wrong on both counts.
Without America’s rich, we’d be Iraq, or some other place that hasn’t produced anything of note in centuries. America is a great nation because of its rich, successful achievers. America’s poor, by and large, contribute nothing more than new guests for the Jerry Springer show. There are always exceptions, but those exceptions end up rich, or successful or both.
My salary is more than earned, whether I am working in a private or public capacity. The military is one of the few federal goverment “services” that I agree with, because it’s constitutionally mandated and it makes sense.
I’ve paid plenty more into the system than I’ve taken out of it over the years.
17 July 15th, 2006 at 7:07 pm
Trevor says:
Perhaps we should give Leona a life sentence, and distribute all her money to the poor so they can buy scratch off tickets…