This week’s Chairman’s Report is written by Les Rubin. Les formed and is the head of Main Street Economics, Inc., a public service, nonpartisan, nonprofit 501c3 corporation. The purpose of Main Street Economics is to educate the ‘voting public’ on economics and the fiscal problems our nation faces. They send a weekly email on important topics for the folks on Main Street - short, easy to read and understand. To subscribe please click here.
Here is Les’ article.
Fair Tax, Federal Debt, and Inflation
What is the relationship between these seemingly disparate topics?
I am a big fan of the Fair Tax. It solves so many problems and would work well, when it gets a fair hearing in DC. Unfortunately, that is easier said than done. It would disrupt the cronyism and corruption we find so rampant and distasteful in DC and be a huge transfer of power from the federal government to the people.
Last year, I wrote an email on the Fair Tax, Understanding the Fair Tax. You can find it here on our website at mainstreeteconomics.org.
Unless you have been in outer space for the last year or lost in the wilderness, you know the Federal government has a debt problem – here are a few numbers to highlight this issue (all data comes from the Department of Treasury financials as of September 30, 2022).
- Current total liabilities including Unfunded Obligations: $122,000,000,000,000 - $122 trillion dollars
- Current interest-bearing debt: $32,000,000,000,000 - $32 trillion dollars
- Government projection of interest-bearing debt in 10 years: $51,000,000,000,000 - $51 trillion dollars. At that time the interest only will be $2 trillion dollars (assuming 4% interest rate.)
You also know that inflation is raging out of control as a result of insane fiscal policies, huge deficits, and exorbitant printing of money.
The Fair Tax goes a long way toward fixing both problems – controlling our deficits and reducing inflation. In fact, there are so many benefits to this tax program, it only needs explaining it to the folks on Main Street for the folks to demand the change.
Deficit Reduction: for starters, it lowers dramatically the cost of collection by eliminating the IRS. It will reduce the cheating and cronyism in the current system which avoids paying tax. We would collect more revenue by eliminating the avoidance schemes everywhere in the 75,000 pages of tax code. It is clearly a pro-growth program which will grow the economy, making all of us better off and continuously raising the revenue resulting from growth.
Cost of Government: because all of us are consumers, every day every American will see the true cost of our federal government on every receipt. All Americans will demand that the FAIRtax rate be lowered by cutting spending.
Inflation: the cost savings to businesses would be remarkable, and lowering costs would, through competition and market forces, lower prices. There are many ways it lowers costs, but the major ones I see are eliminating the cost of collecting data for tax returns; eliminating the tax preparation costs and dealing with the IRS; and eliminating the taxes that businesses pay, including their part of Social Security and Medicare.
Individual Benefits: the same benefits a company gets, eliminate collecting data, tax preparation, and paying the income and social security and Medicare tax. Your gross pay is your net pay, isn’t that sweet!
Of course, you will pay the consumption tax on new goods and services, but you will receive a ‘prebate’ check to cover all of the purchases at a basic level of consumption. So lower income folks would effectively pay no taxes at all. And if they shop wisely and buy used items as much as possible, they might even profit from the ‘prebate’ check.
So, What Should We Do? If we sit idly by and do nothing – we will get nothing done. It takes public support for this to get it done. We need to speak up and let our representatives and the public at large understand this, there is so much PBS about it (political bull s—t), from unknowledgeable people who don’t even understand it, it will take more education and speaking up from all of us.
You can find information at Fairtax.org. There are videos and papers that answer your questions and the questions you will get from your friends when you discuss this idea.
You can send a message to your elected representatives on the FAIRtax website but you can also go to our website, mainstreeteconomics.org, and Contact Congress. All you need to do is put in your name and a valid address and write whatever message you want so send. There is message preprogrammed about fixing the debt problem, but feel free to edit it to promoting the Fair Tax. It will go to the President, V.P., your 2 senators and your representative.
CONCLUSION
Les points out the rapidly growing problem the out-of-control spending is having on the economic health of America and its citizens.
Instead of hiding the true cost of government, the FAIRtax makes it obvious that every American will see the cost as they make purchases.
This is the way to ensure that all Americans will be able to know how their money is wasted and demand changes at the ballot box.
How much longer will the D.C. establishment ignore the obvious—the income/payroll tax system and the IRS are broken and cannot be fixed?
How much longer will we tolerate the D.C. establishment’s refusal to do the right thing because of their greed and desperate desire to control us?
How much longer will Americans tolerate not knowing the true cost of the federal government that the income/payroll tax hides and the FAIRtax shows on every receipt?
Congress and D.C. know that there is a better alternative—the FAIRtax.
Instead of spending time doing endless hours of paperwork that don’t create anything of value to yourself, your family or the nation, why not eliminate the unnecessary waste?
Many in D.C. oppose the FAIRtax because it would transfer power from the government to the people, while at the same time, giving the people a better chance of succeeding on their own.
Isn’t it time to end this ludicrous tax collection system and the IRS?
When the FAIRtax is enacted, there will be no need to fear being audited by the IRS because there will be no more IRS.
Under the FAIRtax, there will be no more tax returns. We will pay our taxes when we make retail purchases of new goods and services.
There is going to be a vote on the FAIRtax in the House of Representatives. McCarthy and the other elites didn’t want it, but it was forced on them.
We now have the opportunity to force all Members of the House to show where they stand. They can:
- Vote for the present income/payroll tax system or for the FAIRtax.
- Support the corrupt income tax and the IRS or eliminate them. It can’t be any simpler than that.
- Hide the true cost of their government or pass the FAIRtax and show everyone the true cost of government on each retail receipt.
- Support the largest transfer of power from government to the people, the FAIRtax, or not.
Please stand with us and demand that your representative support a much fairer, much simpler and much more efficient way to fund the government—the FAIRtax!
There are no tax returns to file and no records to keep. We pay our federal taxes when we make retail purchases of new goods and services, and there is no need for the IRS. If you sell a used couch or used jet ski online, there is no FAIRtax due on that transaction.
The FAIRtax will allow us to TAKE BACK CONTROL.
The income/payroll tax system is broken and no longer working—we can’t repair it but we can replace it with the FAIRTAX!
Join us and TAKE BACK CONTROL OF OUR COUNTRY AND OUR LIVES—NOT WITH BULLETS BUT WITH THE ELIMINATION OF ONE OF THE BIGGEST THREATS TO OUR LIBERTY AND ECONOMIC PROSPERITY—THE INCOME/PAYROLL TAX.
We all should remember Edmund Burke’s warning that applies to our efforts to TAKE BACK CONTROL,
“Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.”
We should also remember this quote from George Orwell's 1984, which, if we do nothing, may foretell your and your children's future:
“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.”
WHAT CAN EACH OF US DO?
We can write letters and make calls to our elected representatives and attend Zoom town hall meetings demanding that if they really want to allow Americans to “TAKE BACK CONTROL”, the first step is to eliminate the income/payroll tax system and enact the FAIRTAX!
TAKE BACK CONTROL! Help us PASS THE FAIRTAX!
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