Reprinted from NewsMax.com
Major Fight Over Tax Overhaul
Looms
Wes Vernon,
NewsMax.com
Thursday, April
17, 2003
See previous article in series, "DeLay:
Replace the IRS With Fair Tax."
WASHINGTON – Look for a major fight over the entire tax system if President
Bush is re-elected in 2004. That’s when the focus may be on replacing the tax
code with a consumption tax, or Fair Tax.
Out the window with the current oppressive code and its enforcer, the IRS.
Out the window with federal taxes on wages, savings and investments.
“We are assuming the president will be re-elected to a second term,” Fair Tax
activist Tom Wright tells NewsMax.com, although he acknowledges that is not a
minor assumption “because he’s sure got some work to do on the economy” by
November 2004.
“We feel quite strongly that if our grassroots continues to do the great job
that it’s been doing for the last 24 months, that after the presidential
election ... we’re assuming that this bill will move through both houses and go
to the White House in the first couple of years of his second term.”
The measure has the bipartisan backing of such lawmakers as Reps. John
Linder, R-Ga., and Collin Peterson, D-Minn., the leading co-sponsors. Also among
those on board are Reps. Billy Tauzin, R.-La., and Ralph Hall, D-Texas.
The movement recently scored a big advance when it secured the backing of
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas.
In the Senate, the prime backer is Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., a former mayor
and one of the most respected figures on Capitol Hill. In his brief presidential
bid in 2000, Lugar made the Fair Tax a centerpiece of his campaign.
Lugar, in fact, has been “a great friend” throughout the 13 years the Fair
Tax campaign has been plugging away. He will no doubt take a leading role in the
Senate when the time comes.
The leadership of Americans for Fair Taxation, personified by chairman Leo
Linbeck, owner of a small, privately held construction firm in Houston, has
discussed the Fair Tax in the Oval Office with Presidents Clinton and Bush and
with Gov. Bush before he ran for president.
“He [Bush] knows the proposal, he knows what we’re up to, he knows who’s
behind it, he knows of the millions of dollars of economic studies that have
been put into this proposal well, well beyond any amount of money that has ever
been spent studying a tax replacement or tax reform proposal in the history of
this country,” Wright declares.
Clinton’s response was typically Clintonian.
“He was very friendly, listened extensively, he was extremely polite. He
promised that he would give it great thought and to our knowledge then did
nothing. But he didn‘t throw us out,” according to Wright, AFT's vice president
for coalitions and alliances. He emphasizes that in this capacity, he is a
volunteer. His day job is financial management.
Karl Rove, President Bush’s political guru, reportedly has told AFT, “Not
now.” The Bush administration has its hands full trying to get its tax-cut
stimulus package through, with no thanks to a coterie of back-stabbing liberal
Republicans.
Congressman DeLay’s support of the Fair Tax movement no doubt was
strengthened when three GOP senators (Grassley, Snowe and Voinovich) made a
“secret” deal to cut the president’s plan to $350 billion. DeLay vowed the House
negotiators, none tougher “anywhere in the world,” would hold out for the
House’s higher $550 billion figure.
So if the federal government does decide to go to a consumption tax, where
does that leave the states and their tax policies? Wright reminds us the
Founding Fathers made it clear the states and municipalities were to be free to
make their own taxation decisions without any interference from the federal
government.
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Bush
Administration
RNC
