We all agree that our government requires money to protect and defend our country while also providing for specific provisions outlined in the Constitution. But our current system of taxation is aggressive and violent and assumes the fruits of our labor are the government’s first; we are permitted to keep the leftovers. A country based on Freedom, Liberty and Equal Rights deserves a kinder way to collect the revenue necessary to allow the government to serve the PEOPLE.

Our elected officials love the 16th Amendment and more specifically, the income tax. It gives them power, the most important currency in the world to them. Power to control our votes by promising tax relief on one hand and tax increases on the demonized wealthy on the other. Just consider how this power has been used during this recession. To “help out” the people, Congress has given us “Cash for Clunkers,” incentives to buy new homes or to caulk our homes and other inefficient and expensive programs that produce little, if any, and certainly short-lived positive outcomes, while adding to the national debt and ensuring our children do not have the same opportunities we did. They want us to act like them and go into more debt to keep this house of cards standing. But common sense tells us that when hard times hit an economy, the prudent and correct thing to do is to save money and protect our wealth. One option and approach we should debate and consider is The Fair Tax.

Our government, inappropriately influenced by big business and corporate interests, wants us to spend –– in some cases, money we don’t even have –– to increase their profits and wealth rather than our own. The Fair Tax would permit us to save money and protect our wealth by allowing us to change our spending habits.

It is time We the People take back our country, and one of the first things we must do is take our money back. The second thing we need to do is repeal the 16th Amendment and replace our current income tax system with the Fair Tax or other viable and just form of taxation. Economic freedom goes hand-in-hand with social liberties, and in America, we ought not have to choose between one, or the other. Our traditions are strong enough, and our people are hungry enough to demand both, and by reclaiming OUR money, we will see the bounty and prosperity that true freedom brings.

Below is a brief explanation of The Fair Tax. Please visit the links below to learn more about The Fair Tax so that We the People may begin this important debate to eliminate the present and entirely UN-fair Income Tax.

The Fair Tax plan is a comprehensive proposal that replaces all federal income and payroll-based taxes with an integrated approach, including a progressive national retail sales tax, a prebate to ensure no American pays federal taxes on spending up to the poverty level, dollar-for-dollar federal revenue replacement and, through companion legislation, the repeal of the 16th Amendment. This nonpartisan legislation (HR 25/S. 296) abolishes all federal personal and corporate income taxes, gift, estate, capital gains, alternative minimum, Social Security, Medicare and self-employment taxes and replaces them with one simple, visible, federal retail sales tax –– administered primarily by existing state sales-tax authorities. The IRS is disbanded and de-funded. The Fair Tax taxes us only on what we choose to spend on new goods or services, not on what we earn. The Fair Tax is a fair, efficient, transparent and intelligent solution to the frustration and inequity of our current tax system.

1. Thumbnail Sketch of the FairTax