Reprinted from NewsMax.com

Wes Vernon, NewsMax.com
Wednesday, April 16, 2003

WASHINGTON – House Majority Leader Tom DeLay wants to get the IRS off the backs of American taxpayers.

By signing on to the Fair Tax Bill, H.R. 25, the Texan has signaled to his troops that abolishing the IRS once and for all is the best way of dealing with oppressive taxation, a confusing convoluted tax code, and an oppressive bureaucracy that enforces the care and feeding of the federal bureaucracy.

The House leader reinforces his determination to get some relief for overtaxed Americans by backing the Fair Tax movement. This is a tax that would be paid on what you consume.

Here’s what the legislation would do:

1. Individuals would not file. Businesses would need to deal only with sales tax returns.

2. Millions of Americans who hire tax accountants to navigate the 4,000-plus pages of the tax code each year would be spared the expense.

3. No more taxes on wages, savings and investments. That alone would increase productivity and result in significant economic growth.

4. As a consumption tax, the amount you pay in taxes would depend on your lifestyle. The more you spend the more you pay, and vice versa. All taxes would be rebated up to the poverty level.

5. Foreign companies would be forced to deal on even terms with American companies for the first time in 80 years. Under the current code, U.S. exports bear an unfair burden, with no adjustment to account for the tax advantages of imports.

“You’re going to have more honest management,” and less reliance on tax shelters, Fair Tax activist George Gettemuller told NewsMax.com. Management “is going to have to be honest, and they’re going to have to be long-term in their projections. And you’re going to see that our manufacturing will come back home.”

That would be “Europe’s worst nightmare” because, according to Gettemuller, we will be “so damned efficient.” We’ll sell our goods on the market at considerably less than the competing products of high-tax double-digit economies in Europe, “and they’re going to have to up the tax on" their own products.

It would help resolve our problematic balance of payments.

“Our balance of payments stinks,” observed the retired stockbroker, who lives in Florida.

“And what’s going to happen is your stock market will go up. Everybody will feel a lot better. I mean this will make the stock market go and make real value,” in his opinion.

Full employment and an end to Enron or Global Crossing-style scandals are among the other benefits envisioned by supporters of Fair Tax.

This movement is not something that was hatched in Washington. Very seldom is the seat of power the birthplace of ideas that provide the average taxpayer with a level playing field.

The idea comes from the grassroots, with Americans for Fair Taxation (AFT) as the guiding force. This Houston-based organization began primarily as a research group that sought to determine what the American people wanted in a tax system and what Americans believed was the best way to collect revenu.

AFT says extensive focus group studies led to the Fair Tax as its choice as “the most reasonable and viable plan possible.”

While Capitol Hill putters around the edges, arguing over whether President Bush’s tax-cut stimulus plan should be cut in half or merely by one-quarter, these citizens are going right to the core of the problem: The IRS, whose job it is to enforce a convoluted income tax code rooted in envy and class hatred.

The worst thing that can happen to radical Marxists is for a rising tide to “lift all boats,” as Ronald Reagan long advocated. If they can’t foment the class struggle, the hard leftists are out of business. They become the proverbial emperor with no clothes.

Next: A look at the Fair Tax Bill’s support on Capitol Hill