Orlando FairTax rally

Orlando held a FairTax rally Saturday, July 29. Despite the humidity and the heat they had a high turnout as well. Organizers say they were happy with the crowd and believe there may have been close to 10,000 people there all though the local news media reported only a couple hundred.

Here is a link to 13 pages of pics from the Orlando FairTax Rally Saturday I will let you be the judge of how many people were there. Here's your link!

One big disappointment from the rally was the bias reporting done by April Hunt from the Orlando Sentinel. I have often said that critics of the FairTax must change the terms of it before they can criticize it. April Hunt did just that. In one paragraph Hunt wrote: "Linder's plan calls for abolishing the income, payroll, gift and estate taxes. In their place, government would impose a 30 percent sales tax on all goods and services that consumers must pay."

The rate, of course, is 23%, not 30%. Nowhere in Hunt's article did she mention the 23% inclusive rate. Nowhere does she explain the difference between an inclusive tax and an exclusive tax. Nowhere in the article does she explain that the FairTax is quoted as an inclusive tax because it is replacing another inclusive tax .. the income tax. If you're in a 25% income tax bracket you will pay $25 in federal income taxes out every $100 you earn. With the 23% FairTax you will pay $23 in taxes out of every $100 you spend.

I have a question for April Hunt. When you are reporting on the income tax, do you cite the 25% tax bracket as being 33%? Well, if you quote the income tax as an exclusive tax, that is exactly what the rate would be! Just how consistent is your reporting?

Hunt also quoted some economists who oppose the FairTax ... but not one quote from any of the economists in favor of the plan.

At any rate the whole event was very encouraging. Whenever you can turn out a crowd that huge in that heat and oppressive huminity for a rally on tax reform, you know you have something going.

This is exactly the kind of thing it is going to take to make the FairTax a reality. Politicians and government are never going to pass this on their own it will take a huge grass roots effort to do it.