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Free Liberal: Coordinating towards higher values

Free Liberal

Coordinating towards higher values

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Straining Credibility

Yes, fairtax would let people keep their entire paycheck.

Wonderful. But fairtax would COST them twice that much - and if they have medical bills, if they rent, if they want to buy a new house or car -- the fairtax could cost them MORE THAN THEIR ENITRE PAYCHECK.

There is an absurd notion that suddenly prices will go DOWN under fairtax. The fairtax folks believe this cause some study said there were 22% "embedded taxes", and they reason that, if you just get rid of those embedded taxes, all prices would drop 22%.

Nonsense. Utter nonsense. Our family owns a small business, and we did the math. We already know what the fairtax would save our busiess. And we would LOVE the savings.

The savings would be that we woudlnt have to pay our empoyees FICA anymore. Great!! Wonderful! But thats not 22%. Its not even close. Its more like 1% of our total receipts. Between 1-2 percent.

So theoretically we could cut our prices 1-2%. Not 22%.

Where did these people get 22%?? How could they be off by a magnitude of 11?

They counted wrong. For one thing, they speak about "compliance cost", which means bookeeping records, tax forms. I got news for ya. We would still need our book keeper, our computers, and our internet connections. Our bookeeper has 1000 things to do. FICA was just one thing. She can easily take care of FICA, its already in the programs, she does it in a few minutes, no problem. In fact, she will have to learn a whole new set of rules and get more programs and software, and be busier than ever, with Fairtax.

So compliance cost -- wrong. We would spend MORE complying with Fairtax.

Then fairtax people say "Well your employees don't have to pay income tax and FICA anymore"
Oh really? How does that help US lower our prices 22%? Or any business? A business can only lower the cost that THEY SAVE. ANd for us -- it would be about 1%.

If we supposedly can lower our prices by our employees FICA and income tax -- then the employee wouldn't be getting their whole paycheck, would they. You can't say the employee saves it -- if you also say the price can go down by that. Classic have your cake and eat it too error.

Then fairtax people will say "Well you owners won't have to pay income tax anymore" So we have to donate our income tax savings to lower prices? I got more news for you. Our total income tax is less than 2% of our gross sales anyway. We are paying off the business loans, we make money but its not anything near high enough that our taxes would be a high portion of our gross sales.

And we would need our income tax savings, just like our employees would -- to pay the higher cost for everthing we buy -- like utlities, like gasoline, like food, .

Then fairtax people say "Well you don't know the research Fairtax did"

We know the research -- its more like public relations nonsense. Fairtax folks have not talked to one CFO at any major corporation. Not one. I dont think they talked to ANYONE, even small business owners. Ithink their research is a bunch of nonsense, hiring public relations.

Lets SEE the research. Lets SEE the books, lets SEE what research they did. We have tried to find the research. We see nonsense arguments that beg the question.

All the "research" just assumes they are right .

And fairtax is based on absolute nonsense. For example, Neal Boortz wrote "The federal government itself will become a major taxpayer"

Major taxpayer? Is Boortz kidding? Just tax the government? What happened to logic? What happened to "only people pay taxes"? Fairtax was all upset that corporations can't pay taxes. But somehow GOVERNMENTS can pay MAJOR portion of its OWN taxes.

Does anyone see the hypocracy?

Besides - the federal government CAN NOT pay itself a dime of taxes -- much less 500 billion. Thats like paying yourself 10,000 a day to cut your own grass. Its preposterous. Its really nuts. You can write your self a check for 10,000, and deposit the check. You can do this every day, but at the end of a month, you don't have 300,000 dolllars. You just have short grass.

Yet Fairtax pretends to have 300,000 a month, from cutting its own grass. Only, it pretends to have 500 billion.

If the government can pay its own tax of 500 billion - -why not 700 billion? Why not just leave us people alone, and have the governmetn pay it all?

-Mark Curran

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A Lesson in Value Theory for Clinton

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Comments

Don't forget that everything you buy for your business will be tax free. There is no business-to-business tax under the FairTax. What is your business, anyway? If you are running a restaurant then all your raw materials will be tax free. You can buy potatos without the 23% tax. Would that help lower your prices?

Don't forget that everything you buy for your business will be tax free. There is no business-to-business tax under the FairTax. What is your business, anyway? If you are running a restaurant then all your raw materials will be tax free. You can buy potatos without the 23% tax. Would that help lower your prices?

You forgot that every business will immediately start benefiting from the reduced cost of doing business.

You admitted that your business will recognize a 1-2% decrease in payroll. That expense is a direct cost. But your business will receive the biggest benefit indirectly. If you're business recognizes a 1-2% decrease, then so does everyone else. That includes every one of your vendors.

The cost of doing business will decrease by 22%. Not because of your direct reductions, but because of your indirect reductions.

# posted at by Ron

Your assertion that the cost of compliance for your business only amounts to a few percentage points may be accurate; however, you are leaving out MANY other expenses that total up to the 22% savings in the price of goods. First of all, your family business would pay no income tax. Secondly, all resources your family business uses would be tax free. That means no entity upstream of you would have been charged taxes much like you weren't. Thus those few percentage points add up. (By the way, FICA is about 6% per employee from the business. How do you get 1%? 1% of what? 1% of the cost of the product?)

You belittle the research that went into calculating the 22% number for embedded taxes; however, that particular number was reached by the independent analysis of multiple economists. All of their peer-reviewed journal papers are on www.fairtax.org. Furthermore, once the excess expenses are removed from all businesses' production lines, market economics will force the prices to lower. This is simple econ 101.

You do make a very valid point in the midst of your other errors: the money saved by removing FICA and witholding must either go to the employee or reduce the cost of the good. It can't go both ways. The thing to keep in mind is that the purchasing power of individuals sees an effective 22% price drop -- whether that's because they have 22% more money or the prices drop 22% or some combination of the two doesn't matter.

Of course the FairTax researchers and economists have consulted with businesses. The papers regarding that research are all on the website. To paraphrase here, most professional business organizations support the FairTax. A poll of the top 500 foreign companies (who both previously existed in the US and didn't) found that every single company would either relocate to the a FairTax'd US or would build their next plant here. Alan Greenspan is quoted as saying (paraphrased) that $12 trillion dollars worth of offshore investment would return to the US within a matter of months after the FairTax is enacted.

Finally, the government currently pays taxes on itself anyway. All federal employees are subject to the income tax and its regulations like every other business. Under your logic, why has the federal government not already raised its own taxes to the point of infinity?

I encourage you to keep up with the questions. We FairTax supporters have seen them all before and can usually find a good answer. I would also suggest you read either Boortz's FairTax book or search www.fairtax.org for "FairTax Fundamentals" so that you can better educate yourself.

# posted at by Clinton Smith

You keep saying this 1% of your total receipts and you mentioned embedded taxes which the previous poster mentioned. What you seem to be missing is that you are not the only business that sells its goods in order to pay taxes and still make money. Whatever materials you buy have embedded taxes. Take the paper you buy... the people cutting down the trees get charged a tax on their sales to say a paper mill that then makes the paper and pays a tax on their sales. The paper mill sells it to a distributor that pays the tax on their sale to office depot. then you have to pay a sales tax on the item you sell to your customer... this hold true for every product you buy. That is the rundown of it for you since it seems you couldn't figure it out for yourself.

Also what you have to realize, with respect to your business... Did you buy a new building to house your business? My answer is most likely not, yet you still pay or paid taxes on the building or on the rent that you pay to occupy that building.

Here is another point... if the federal government were to enact the Fairtax then most states would soon follow suit. Therefore you would be able to save even more money for profit and or could lower your prices for your customers.

I just cant understand how you can want such a complicated system as the current one over the Fairtax. Even if there is no real change, which there will be, then you would just have less paperwork to do every year because you would have paid your taxes already in the sales tax that is the fairtax.

Again keep coming with the question because we will set you right

# posted at by Mike, Louisiana

"Fairtax folks have not talked to one CFO at any major corporation. Not one."

Are you serious Mark? You can really back that up?

And while Boortz is all about 22% price drops FairTax.org is not. If you look at the FairTax calculator and turn on price drops they go to 10% by default.

Also, you make the classic mistake of "I can't see it so it must not be true" when you say prices won't drop. You can't logially say that your case is the average case. Corporations do pay income and payroll tax along with compliance costs to navigate the corporate tax code.

You may not have thought of this but the feds are already paying taxes to themselves. Matching payroll and embedded. The important thing is that (yes,) University research has been done and determines that there is no additional fiscal burden.

And that ever elusive amount of research? Google "fair tax research" or find it under the tab "About the FairTax" on fairtax.org. Amazing what you can't find if you don't look.

# posted at by Aaron

"Fairtax folks have not talked to one CFO at any major corporation. Not one."

Are you serious Mark? You can really back that up?

And while Boortz is all about 22% price drops FairTax.org is not. If you look at the FairTax calculator and turn on price drops they go to 10% by default.

Also, you make the classic mistake of "I can't see it so it must not be true" when you say prices won't drop. You can't logially say that your case is the average case. Corporations do pay income and payroll tax along with compliance costs to navigate the corporate tax code.

You may not have thought of this but the feds are already paying taxes to themselves. Matching payroll and embedded. The important thing is that (yes,) University research has been done and determines that there is no additional fiscal burden.

And that ever elusive amount of research? Google "fair tax research" or find it under the tab "About the FairTax" on fairtax.org. Amazing what you can't find if you don't look.

# posted at by Aaron

I think you are not allowing yourself to think through the full circle of the effects.
Let's say at first the cost to consumers rises about 30%, reflecting the 23% inclusive FairTax, and that take home pay rises somewhere between 30% to 36% (for the payroll tax and Fed Income tax - assuming you are curently getting exactly the right amount of withholding taken out for federal tax). His buying power is the same or better. This range of percentages, ranges from a person with a current gross salary of $16575 who under the current system has a take home of $14526 and under the FairTax would a take home of $18923 (including the prebate); to a person with a current gross pay of $85850 who has a take home of $64760 which would go to $88198 (including prebate) under the FairTax. I have figured in standard deduction and personal exemption in the current take home. This also assumes that you as a business owner pays the employer portion of the payroll tax to the employee instead of keeping it. This keeps your payroll costs at the same level. Also at the same level are all your costs of business related materials and cost of inventory since you would not need to pay the 23% inclusive tax for those business items. Now we will also assume that you as an employer who now does not need to pay the employer portion of the payroll tax to the federal government decides pay it to the employee. So your employee costs as an employer does not change.

Compliance costs will go down. Employees won't have to be spending for personal tax consulting or wasting days per year taking care of record keeping and tax preparation. Business will not have income taxes to pay or pay consultants to figure out how not to pay taxes. Employees who begin to get ahead will be able to save and invest tax free to accumulate wealth.
Reality is, like it or not, there would be a drop in prices as cost are shown to decrease. The other extreme is that employers decide that employees are happy with their current level of take home pay and in effect cut wages to that level under the FairTax. Now employers do have a real cost decrease which should drive prices down through competition to the point where the cost of goods with the inclusive 23%sales tax is the same as current prices. The reality ia somewhere in between. This will give our products a distinct advantage on the world market... since we would not impose sales tax to the wholesale importer in other countries. Now we start to play on the world market with out the embedded cost of domestic taxes in our products. All those trillions of US dollars in off shore accounts begin to come back home as investment here at home, and our balance of trade inproves with US goods that the world can afford.

So what don't you understand?

# posted at by Russ Seltzer

Who is this author? Are you telling me he knows more than a nonpartisan panel of the top economist in the world? This panel has been researching this subject over a decade. How long has he? Either he is not up to date on Fair Tax, or he is just misleading you.

# posted at by Rich

Who is this author? Are you telling me he knows more than a nonpartisan panel of the top economist in the world? This panel has been researching this subject over a decade. How long has he? Either he is not up to date on Fair Tax, or he is just misleading you.

# posted at by Rich

Dear Mark Curran,

Congratulations! You've hit a new low in comprehension. I'm usually not one to attack the messenger, but in your case, I think I'd be doing the world a favor...

To say you haven't got a clue, is an insult to clueless people everywhere. It's obvious you've just made up some numbers, and attacked them... bravo, Don Quixote!

# posted at by ctyankee

Dear Mark Curran,

Congratulations! You've hit a new low in comprehension. I'm usually not one to attack the messenger, but in your case, I think I'd be doing the world a favor...

To say you haven't got a clue, is an insult to clueless people everywhere. It's obvious you've just made up some numbers, and attacked them... bravo, Don Quixote!

# posted at by ctyankee

Dear Mark Curran,

Congratulations! You've hit a new low in comprehension. I'm usually not one to attack the messenger, but in your case, I think I'd be doing the world a favor...

To say you haven't got a clue, is an insult to clueless people everywhere. It's obvious you've just made up some numbers, and attacked them... bravo, Don Quixote!

# posted at by ctyankee

I would suggest that the Author of this piece actually read the both Fairtax books, and educate himself. Either through ignorance, or bliss, there is a complete lack of understanding about the Fairtax.

# posted at by Mickey Lattimore

Once again, someone has to embarrass themselves by publishing an article without doing any work to get their facts correct.

# posted at by Devlin

The FairTax is a lie, a fraud, and a cheat to ever middle class person in America. See fairtaxfraud.com for the truth on this horrible tax plan.

There is nothing "non-partisan" about the FairTax. There are literally no Democratic supporters, no liberal groups that support it, and no independent economists that support it. The so called economists were hired by a group of billionaires to propose a sales tax. They were chosen because they had previously written papers on sales taxes and flat taxes. The fair tax was penned by billionaires for billionaires. See fairtaxfraud.com for an intelligent alternative to the fairtax propaganda site.

Some consider me a liberal Democrat - and although I do not support it as written, I do think debating it is a starting point.

The 10% savings figure is justified, provided that employers keep the employer paid withholding for FICA and Unemployment taxes. If this goes to raise employee salaries than it is likely a wash as most firms sink their other tax costs (sorry Fred) into their general accounting cost. Additionally - any cost savings in this area will shrink the economy as tax preparers and accountants lose income and therefore spend less, resulting in less Fair Tax revenue.

In other words, the equation does not balance when it claims savings.

The other way it does not balance is in the tax on government services. The author is wrong on the government writing itself a check - it does not. The check goes to state tax collection agencies which then transfer the money back to the government. This schema may be where some of the "savings" comes from to taxpayers in the Fair Tax calculations. This savings is false, however, since if you make government pay taxes without increasing budget authority you have in essence enacted a cut in non-entitlement spending. Reducing government spending in this manner will reduce the size of the economy as the expenditure decrease ripples through the economy - decreasing Fair Tax revenue so that the rate must be increased.

A Revenue Neutral Fair Tax won't work. Fair Tax must raise enough money to fund government expenditure at current pre-tax levels (you must buy as many bullets for the Gulf War, MRE's, etc.) and then add additional budget authority to pay the tax - which results in a Fair Tax Rate of over 23.82% inclusive (the real rate, BTW). Before you cite it - the study cited on the Fair Tax web page does not count this revenue loss - reread the study if you have any doubts. The people in the Office of Tax Policy who rejected the Fair Tax are not IRS employees, so they had no bias. They raised real objections which have not been answered by fairtax.org.

The Fair Tax proponents also do not understand how the best competing proposal, a Value Added Tax works. A value added tax does not tax twice because both purchased services and the VAT paid on them are exempt when calculating your own VAT. You only pay taxes on wages and profit in a VAT - and because everything is taxed at the same rate (both labor and capital) a VAT is actually fairer then the Fair Tax. Of course, to make it politically more attractive, you can make the VAT less even by transferring some of the more popular deductions to the VAT (with limits on subsidies to the wealthy) and have them be tranferred to the employees in the form of credits. In fact, major savings can be had by privating the pension portion of FICA and the prebate - having businesses pay these directly to the employee rather than sending the money to the state revenue collection folks then on to the Feds and Social Security (along with the accompanying data file - meaning that all that employee record keeping on salaries is still required under the Fair Tax - isn't it).

The final point about revenue neutrality is that it only applies to the temporary Bush Tax cut, which will not be made permanent while Charles Rangel is Ways and Means Committee Chairman - and unless there is a ground swell for the Fair Tax and a change in popular attitudes on the Bush Tax cuts, this won't happen before they expire. Calculating revenue neutrality, let alone expenditure neutrality (current spending + fair tax) becomes a bar that cannot be reached without an income surtax on incomes over $150,000 per year.

One final comment. According to published reports, Huckabee also favors private accounts for Social Security. You can't have private accounts as written and the fair tax as written. You may be able to create private accounts within Social Security, but it won't reduce tax rates the way the President's Commission to Save Social Security drew it up.

Since Huckabee and Paul are basically out of it (although I did vote for Huck in VA, which didn't help because enough others did not) there is no champion for this idea for four years (until Huckabee takes another crack at it - or less if Huck is VP and McCain dies in office).

The other Huckabee possibility is if Carey Campbell of the Independent Greens puts together a 3rd party coalition to back Bloomberg and Bloomberg still sits out the race. If this happens the strongest independent candidate becomes Huckabee IF he is willing to destroy the GOP (doing to it what Wallace did to the Democrats a generation ago). A centrist movement (social conservative/economic progressive/regulatory libertarian) behind Huckabee could replace the GOP as the second major party - especially if he can convince House members from his region to vote for him rather than for McCain if he wins enough electoral votes to prevent a majority.

Things could get interesting. If they don't, we are wasting our time debating the Fair Tax, as its fortunes ebb with every McCain victory. Unless Huckabee wins Texas and Ohio, this debate is finished. If Clinton also loses and Obama sews up the nomination the debate is really over, since Obama beats McCain and the Bush tax cuts not only expire - they will be repealed - making it impossible for the Fair Tax to reach revenue neutrality and still be marketable.

The 22% is an average across all businesses. For example, in the 1980's Roger Smith, chairman of GM testified to Congress that if the embedded taxes were remove he could sell a $4300 (1980s prices) Chevy for $2700. Much more than 22% due to the number of companies involved.

You also say that companies will not drop prices. What will you do when your competitor does drop prices and starts taking your customers?

# posted at by Dewey715

There are certain classes of folk who will "drop their prices" to account for the Fair Tax: landlords. If the Fair Tax were enacted (big if) they would back their tax liability out of the rent and collect the fair tax on the rental instead.

You can't do the same thing with wage income with the Fair Tax - however you could with a VAT. If a VAT were enacted Gross Incomes would be reduced to Net Incomes plus insurance and retirement deductions unless these costs were wholly employer provided, in which case Gross would match Net.

Like I have said before, a big impetus to the Fair Tax is a rather juvenile notion that people feel they are being cheated by not keeping all of their grosses. Most of us lose that feeling around college age.

A common thread running through the so called expert criticism of Mark's excellent post is that embedded cost savings cascade or accumulate up through the various levels of production. Dollar savings, yes, but in terms of percentage of cost savings, no!.. It doesn't matter if there is one level of production or ten, the percentage cost savings will be the same. Which leads to the question of embedded costs and retail prices.

Not everyone seems to understand that two thirds of the embedded costs of the income tax system can be attributed to employee payroll and income tax withholding. And that money belongs to the employee, frequently by contract, and can't be used to reduce business costs. How many of you would give up that withholding amount to your employer in the hope that businesses would eventually reduce prices? Basic economics says that prices are very sticky downward, and you will need your gross pay to pay higher retail prices.

So, the best you can hope for is a 10% reduction in business costs, including compliance costs, and a 17% increase in retail prices. (1.00 x .9 x 1.3 = 1.17)

As for the often mentioned Fairtax claim that $12 trillion in dollars currently invested offshore will rush back to the US when the Fairtax becomes law, with all due respect to Mr. Greenspan, it's a myth. According to a briefing paper done by the Tax Justice Network, (www.taxjustice.net, it turns out that the $12 trillion is owned by high net worth individuals and corporations from all over the world. Only 17% or $1.6 trillion is owned by North Americans, which includes 23 countries from Panama to Greenland. It's also important to note that much of the $12 trillion is invested in non liquid assets such as real estate.

It isn't clear at all that owners of that wealth which is successfully invested offshore would want to return to the US no matter what our tax structure might be. Who would want the government getting back into their business through the provisions of HR25, Sec. 801-806 which deals with implicit taxes on both investment and debt instruments. And for all non resident aliens and foreign corporations, they would be subject to HR25, Sec 905 which lays a 23% tax (or whatever treaties allow) on profits made within the US.

Before shooting the messenger, many of you need to do some more homework of your own!

# posted at by Hank Van Gieson

For those who posted here against the FT, I think you all need to get a reality check and check your facts while you are at it. There IS 12 trillion off shore and even if 1.2 trillion came back do you know what that would do to our economy? Do you know what a trillion is??? Do the math; even 1/3 of that coming back is huge!
Also the VAT and the FT is very similar. Just the FT is a VAT with a prebate. As to the research, it was not all supported by economists paid for by billionaires and even if it was, it is better than politicians doing the research with their lobbyist influenced biases. As to the Ft being non-partisan- it is. When the FT is saying it is non-partisan, it means they do not support any candidate or politician just because that person supports the FT. It would have been easy for the FT folks to publicly come out and throw full support and money behind Mike Huckabee, yet they did not. The AFFT has never shown partisanship and never will. The fact that mostly republicans have sponsored the FT is a matter of party idealism rather than any partisan bias. The FT is non-partisan, so get over it, please! Read “FairTax the Truth” for real facts supported by real documented facts, unlike many of the authors here. I would love to see the Ft passed and allow some of these folks to continue to comply with the current tax code by giving them a special card that allows them to buy without the FT imposed. They can continue the current twisted system and try and comply with the 65,000-page tax code and get their paychecks fully taxed while their neighbors take home their whole paychecks. Those under the current tax code would come running to the FairTax in a heartbeat!
One more thing, the website "FairTax Fraud" is a fraud in itself, especially now that the new FT book is out that dispels all the lies and twisted truths on that website. “FairTax Fraud”, with it’s 12 supporters, is dead!

# posted at by Rich

For those who posted here against the FT, I think you all need to get a reality check and check your facts while you are at it. There IS 12 trillion off shore and even if 1.2 trillion came back do you know what that would do to our economy? Do you know what a trillion is??? Do the math; even 1/3 of that coming back is huge!
Also the VAT and the FT is very similar. Just the FT is a VAT with a prebate. As to the research, it was not all supported by economists paid for by billionaires and even if it was, it is better than politicians doing the research with their lobbyist influenced biases. As to the Ft being non-partisan- it is. When the FT is saying it is non-partisan, it means they do not support any candidate or politician just because that person supports the FT. It would have been easy for the FT folks to publicly come out and throw full support and money behind Mike Huckabee, yet they did not. The AFFT has never shown partisanship and never will. The fact that mostly republicans have sponsored the FT is a matter of party idealism rather than any partisan bias. The FT is non-partisan, so get over it, please! Read “FairTax the Truth” for real facts supported by real documented facts, unlike many of the authors here. I would love to see the Ft passed and allow some of these folks to continue to comply with the current tax code by giving them a special card that allows them to buy without the FT imposed. They can continue the current twisted system and try and comply with the 65,000-page tax code and get their paychecks fully taxed while their neighbors take home their whole paychecks. Those under the current tax code would come running to the FairTax in a heartbeat!
One more thing, the website "FairTax Fraud" is a fraud in itself, especially now that the new FT book is out that dispels all the lies and twisted truths on that website. “FairTax Fraud”, with it’s 12 supporters, is dead!

# posted at by Rich

An earlier poster said this....

"There is nothing non-partisan about the FairTax. There are literally no Democratic supporters, no liberal groups that support it, and no independent economists that support it."

Is that right?

http://www.gravel2008.us/?q=fair_tax

# posted at by Ron

There are a few liberal supporters and even more liberal supporters of a VAT (like Jerry Brown). The question is almost moot, however.

There are key background assumptions undergirding the Fair Tax proposals that most liberals do not and will not ever agree with. It is not so much the tech which will require compromise, but how to compromose on the values underlying the facts.

In the very near future and assumption of revenue neutrality will sink the Fair Tax unless there is compromise on a surtax on upper income individuals - the rates are too high otherwise.

Forget about passing it this year as written. It is not going to happen. If you think otherwise, share whatever you are smoking with the rest of us.

On the issue of compromise and values, I notice in the Fair Tax literature the following assumptions:

Government spending should be automatically cut (which is the result of not increasing budget authority to offset the tax paid by government).

Taxing investment income at all is bad for the economy and taxing the wealthy at a higher rate is theft.

Taxes must be visible - no hidden or included taxes.

Individuals should not have to file taxes.

The proponents need to decide which of these assumptions they are willing to compromise on (and their supporters are willing to compromise on - meaning most of the advocates here, since I don't think any of those here have the heft to actually change the proposal).

How badly do you want to stop filing income taxes?

If the Fair Tax were split into a transparent VAT and a hidden business income tax, where the business income tax levy were reduced to include certain credits that cannot be abolished (health insurance, the prebate (expanded x4 to provide a guaranteed income of $500 per dependent/month), a capped mortgage interest credit, education credits (university/technical, remedial (in lieu of TANF) dependent) etc. for services provided through the tax code rather than through direct spending by DOL, DEd, HHS, USDA) would you support that - or do you prefer having bureaucrats make these allocations?

If the Bush tax cuts are allowed to expire or cancelled, will you accept a surtax on income over $150,000 for individuals from all sources in order to keep the Fair Tax Rate low - or would you rather forget the whole thing instead (not balancing the budget is not an option unless you want to pay $200 per barrel for oil).

Are you willing to increase budget authority to keep taxing government spending provisions, thereby keeping actual expenditures constant? Note, this is a question about line by line budgeting, not economic effects or deficit size. No where in H.R. 25's plain language text did I find any blanket increases in budget authority. Did I miss something, or did Neal?

Do you dare answering my questions?

Did I get the last word?

# posted at by Michael Bindner

The Free Liberal, isn't that an oxymoron? Wanting Big Brothers care isn't free.

# posted at by tkrop

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