Boortz: FairTax Movement “Going Strong”
From Neal Boortz:
The FairTax movement is going strong my friends, stronger than you might imagine. I can assure you that the FairTax is attracting an ever-increasing degree of attention in Washington. I wish I could share the details, but the wonderful world of politics is such that it is much better to let the people involved spill the beans than to jump the gun by disclosing their interest or involvement ahead of time.
There have been three events in recent months that have really peaked interest among the political class. First was the debut of The FairTax Book on the New York Times Bestseller’s list for paperbacks. We’re still there ranking very high in the business category. Second was the FairTax rally in Atlanta a few months ago. When we packed a room full of 4,500 people, and then turned another 4,000 away, the shockwaves were felt inside the Beltway the very next day. On the morning after the rally Congressman Linder, who had returned to Washington overnight, was buttonholed by a number of colleagues to explain “just what it was you did there in Atlanta last night.”
To all,
While the arguments pro and con about the minutae of the FairTax are going strong, I would sure like to see a more comprehensive study on the effect on our country as far as business moving into this country due to the lack of corporate tax, removing the need for the Kennedy-esque off shore trust funds, and what tourism and the illegal immigrant contributions would be. What is the current amount of tourism $ that are coming in form overseas?, etc. Those things may be answered somewhere in more detail than The FairTax book, but that is one of the areas that I believe we are overlooking when we do our overall calculations. Maybe that is one of those things that while we know will be positive, we just have no way to correctly quantify. Again, this information may be available now, and perhaps I don’t know where to find it.
Here are some things that are currently available.
Bill Archer, former head of the House Ways and Means Committee, asked Princeton University econometricists to survey 500 European and Asian companies regarding the impact on their business decisions if the United States enacted the FairTax. 400 of those companies stated they would build their next plant in the United States. 100 companies said they would move their corporate headquarters to the United States.
I think one of the new studies addresses the trust fund question – perhaps the Arduin, Laffer & Moore Econometrics analysis.
It is estimated that approximately 5 million illegal immigrants are paid off the books in cash allowing employee and employer to avoid paying federal taxes estimated at least $35 billion a year.
The U.S. Department of Commerce estimates more than 54 million international travelers plan to visit the United States in 2007, spending $113 billion.
Thanks, Jeff,
It seems that there is a concerted effort out there to keep that sort of news away from the general public. I don’t want to use the term conspiracy, but as long as 80% of the news is controlled by left-leaners, I suppose there won’t be a huge outpouring of support at the mainstream media level.
Bren
I think is it very important to distinguish:
1) The amount of tourist dollars going to the US, and
2) The amount of tourist dollars going directly to the federal government in the form of the “unembedded” FairTax
You may replace all federal embedded taxes with a federal unembedded FairTax…
But if the price stays relatively the same, the FairTax will not significantly change how much we tax tourism. What is important is that we increase revenues from tourism. It’s not just the tax that we regard as important for our economy.
Nevertheless, tourism happens to be price elastic, so increasing the total federal tax would help increase total spending by international tourists in the US.