FairTax Rally, May 24
May 25, 2006 · Filed under: Events
Last night, a large FairTax rally was hosted by Neal Boortz here in Atlanta. My life ended up being a little busier than I expected, and after hearing that attendance looked to be phenomenal, I chose to skip it...
Did anyone end up going? How was it?
17 Responses to “FairTax Rally, May 24”
I went! The Fair Tax Rally was incredible!! Check out Neal Boorz’s website for a picture and some links to local newspapers acocunt of the event. The rally proved that America is ready for the Fair Tax. The grassroots effort is on fire, and we’re ready to do the legwork to make it a reality.
http://boortz.com/nuze/index.html
I tried to get in, but before I got within a mile of the place, they announced that they had filled the room and could not admit anymore people, so I went home and listened on the radio.
It was fantastic!! Neal and John presented things, new and old, in a warm and relaxed manner. The mood was really good. Even that “closet liberal” Clark Howard’s mention of the flat tax was recieved with reasonable humor.
After what I saw last night there is no way that the FairTax will not pass.
Any historians out there know when was the last time there was such a considerable show of support for a change in the tax code? My guess is that it happened in Boston...
I just made it in time and Oh MY God. I have always said that I lived in the wrong time. Too young to go to Woodstock and too old to play the cool video games (long live Intellivision). I can honestly say Wednesday night I found out why I live in the era that I do.
It is time for the American people to rise up to the position of power OVER our government that has been missing since the start of the invisible withholdings system set up to gouge more out of the American tax payer. The philosophy was “If it wasn’t given to them in the 1st place they won’t notice how much is taken”.
Comcast said they should have it ready for “on-demand” June 1. Record it and share with everyone you know. We Can Do This!!!
I just got home from the FairTax rally in Atlanta. It was awesome to see more than 4500 in the auditorium, and more than 4000 turned away. I hope none of you were in the second group. I searched the place, but didn’t see anyone I know.
Neal, of course, was at the top of his game. He says he gets nervous in front of crowds, but I think the heightened adrenaline makes him better. I had never seen Royal in person or pictures and was surprised to see that he is a little more round than the handsome stud Neal always describes him as on the radio.
Sean Hannity was there. He was a little mean-spirited and made a crack about Alan Colmes and Alec Baldwin that I thought the evening would have been better without.
Congressman John Linder the author of the FairTax bill, is passionate and superbly articulate as well. He shared some news that some of you will consider fantastic, but I consider a little bit depressing. He informed the crowd that he is meeting with Bill Young (my representative and the chairman of the House Ways and Means committee), Speaker Hastert, Karl Rove and President Bush in the coming weeks to decide whether or not to run on the FairTax as an election year issue. In my opinion that will make the FairTax even more of a partisan issue than minority leader Pelossi already has made it. I really hate to see them do that. I think the issue should remain as non-partisan as possible. It really is the most progressive option out there, and the more partisan it becomes, the less likely any democrat candidate will support it, and less likely that voters will cross party lines to support it in either direction. I have declared a long time ago that I will vote independent, republican, or democrat, for any candidate pledging support for the FairTax. If C.W. “Bill” Young won’t cosponsor the bill but his democratic challenger Samm Simpson will, how many of us in district 10 would make that choice? For those of you in my district, please send me an email personally at DavidFL10 -at- FairTax.net to answer that question.
I suppose Banks and Shane are popular if you like country music and live in the south. I’d never heard of them. They were OK. The FairTax song was sorta goofy, but there is no bad way to get more exposure for the FairTax.
The best part of the rally was Herman Cain, former candidate for Senate in Georgia. He is an old black professional man who told stories of rural Georgia, the civil rights movement, and how his grandfather took the bumpiest roads into town whenever they had potatoes to sell to the vegetable vendors. Herman asked one time why they took the good, smooth, well-traveled road when it was just the people, but the bumpiest, roughest, least traveled roads when they had the potato wagon. listen here if it works Grandfather explained that when you travel the roughest roads, the small potatoes settle to the bottom of the wagon, and the big potatoes rise to the top of the wagon. The story got a good laugh, and then he pointed to us and said we are the biggest potatoes–embarked on a rough road to getting the FairTax passed; and he expects to see us rise to the top. He sounds like a gospel preacher when he talks and I had tears in my eyes.
All-in-all, I am thrilled that I went. Who else went? and what was your take?
try this link to hear a clip of Herman Cain’s speech.
Here is how he ended the potato story.
There are over 100,000 people who work for the IRS. There are thousands of lawyers and accountants who earn a living helping people file tax returns. If you really believe there’s a chance the Fair Tax will fly, you are living in Never-Never Land.
Pat Clauser:
I happen to know both tax lawyers and tax accountants (including my father in law) who would disagree with you. I have talked to a couple of retired IRS employees who like the FairTax, but I don’t know any current employees so I have no insight into their stance. The bottom line is that if you are an educated, competent person with marketable skills you have nothing to worry about. The U.S. will still need a regulatory agency to administer the FairTax, so at least some of the current IRS employees could work there.
Two of us carpooled to Charlotte, where we joined another FairTax
supporter and his two daughters in their van for the rest of the trip.
They were reading the FairTax books he gave them and sounded like they understood a lot!
The trip was great and the rally was the most high-energy event I’ve
seen in a long time. Aside from Clark Howard giving a plug for the
flat-tax (I wonder what that was about) I loved every minute of the show.
They didn’t drop all those letters on the stage like I thought they would.
There is no doubt that another rally is on the drawing board. Neal
Boortz said on the air that he was getting a sense of where it would
be, but didn’t reveal anything more. I’m sure it will be in
an arena that holds at least 10,000 people.
I’m looking forward to the conference in Roanoke on June 17!
Following the FairTax rally, Allan Burns, who is the Democratic challenger to Linder’s Congressional seat, challenged Linder to a debate on the FairTax.
According to the news report, Linder’s spokesperson said he would consider such a debate, but did not commit at that point. To those of you who support the FairTax, I would urge you to email Linder and ask him to accept the debate. After all, if he really believes in the FairTax, he should be willing to debat the issue rather than just go to rallies where he doesn’t need to answer any hard questions.
Hayden,
There’s more at stake, of course, than simply whether Linder is willing to answer tough questions. By agreeing to the debate, Linder would also be granting considerable free publicity to an upstart challenger.
If Linder fails to accept the debate, it doesn’t mean he’s ducking tough questions. It could well mean that he’s simply not willing to cede turf to a political challenger.
It’s a clever move by Burns, but probably not all it’s cracked up to be.
FairTax supporters would support their cause better by encouraging Linder to challenge Nancy Pelosi (for example) to a debate about the FairTax.
That would be a terrific debate for everyone to watch. ...Unless, of course, Pelosi is unwilling for some reason to answer tough questions about her position on US tax policy.
Joshua
Joshua –
Since Linder is in a heavily Republican district where he won reelection in 2002 with something like 70% of the vote (he was unopposed in 2004), I doubt if he has much to worry about from his “upstart challenger” (sad to say).
And, though it pains me to say this, I really don’t think Ms. Pelosi is the strongest spokesperson out there. In any event, she’s got much bigger issues to hang around the Repulicans’ necks than the FairTax (unless, of course, they want to adopt it as a part of their party’s platform.)
But I think we agree on one thing. It would be nice to have a few honest public debates about the FairTax between knowledgeable people who actually know what they are talking about. The “debate” between Boortz and Graetz last monght wasn’t really much of a debate, and didn’t get much publicity, but at least it was a start.
I’m sure the FairTax rallies feel good for FairTax supporters, but they aren’t anything new. (I attended a few of them ten years ago in Houston.) Moreover, since they are really just preaching to the choir at those things, the proponents never need to defend any of their claims which, in turn, just leads to further exagerations and hyperbole that in the long run probably don’t do your cause any lasting good.
Anyway, Joshua, hope to see you at a FairTax debate one day. Who knows, maybe we can even represent our respective sides!
Best regards,
Hayden
I will be helping at a Neal Boortz FT rally in Mo in the morning I will let you know how it goes. Atlanta looked great!
Our rally went really well. I would say there were about 8-900 people and in our city on a Saturday morning at 8am for $8.00 to talk about taxes that is huge. One interesting piece of news that Neal brought up was that the Atlanta rally turned heads in Washington. Apparently D. Hastert called J. LInder in and asked what happened in Atlanta last night?? there is now a mtg. scheduled with the president and a few other heavy weights to discuss making this a major issue in the 08 campaigns. Also Hastert said he was going to officially sign on to the bill! There is going to be a repeat of Atlanta in Orlando in a few weeks according to Neal. I sure wish I could go. Anyway, Just wanted to let folks know a little of what happened at our rally.
I’ve got a better tax plan than the Fair Tax... I call it the No Tax plan. The government already spends way more than they bring in, and nobody seems to care. Get rid of taxes altogether and let people and companies keep the money they earn.
Really though, the current tax system used to be simple and easy until the government started building in loopholes and credits, making it a mess to file. They’d do the same thing with a sales tax too. They are already talking about refunds for the poor... I’m sure the they can dream up a million other refunds, and we’ll all have to save every single receipt and file for refunds.
The problem isn’t income taxes vs sales taxes, it is how the government keeps screwing with them.
I have been unable to find out anything about a bus to/from Orlando on saturday 7/29/06 on the internet from Jacksonville, Fl.
Put all information about a rally so that on the fairtaxblog so that people don’t get frustrated and say the heck with it.