A President Tells Us Why We Must Continue
Many of us have labored for many years to pass the FAIRtax, a bill that will do much to remedy many of the problems that have divided our country and hampered our prosperity. It will also let us TAKE BACK CONTROL of how much we pay in federal taxes and clearly see how much we are paying in federal taxes.We are not funded by special interests. None of us receive a salary and we pay our own expenses related to our activities.
This is so unusual that many in D.C. refuse to accept that we do this with nothing personal to gain. They are used to dealing only with people who are seeking a benefit for their clients or themselves at everyone else’s expense.
This is the way they operate and to deal with people like us is very unsettling to them. We can’t be silenced with money or special favors.
In 1995, Bill Archer became Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. He was from Houston and a friend of the men who created AFFT, and he became a friend of mine.
Bill and I spoke at a rally in Houston that was attended by over 400 volunteers who were seeking to replace the federal income tax with a national retail sales tax.
After our presentation, Bill had an opportunity to speak with a number of the attendees. When he asked them why they supported a national retail sales tax, they all said that it was for the good of the country and for their kids and grandkids.
As we were leaving, Bill came up to me and remarked, I can’t believe that these people all came to show their support for something that would not benefit them directly but only benefits the country.
Yes, you skeptics in D.C., there are people who do things because they are right and good—not for compensation or glory.
Sometimes when I get discouraged, I look to history and particularly to people who have taken positions and advocated that good people must keep telling the truth and eventually they will succeed.
The Man in the Arena: Citizenship in a Republic
Theodore Roosevelt gave his Citizenship in a Republic Speech on April 23, 1910 at the Sorbonne in Paris. Theodore Roosevelt is between Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln on Mount Rushmore. He served as our 26th President from 1901 to 1909.Below are excerpts from the speech.
A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticize work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life’s realities—all these are marks, not as the possessor would fain to think, of superiority but of weakness.
They mark the men unfit to bear their part painfully in the stern strife of living, who seek, in the affection of contempt for the achievement of others, to hide from others and from themselves in their own weakness. The role is easy: there is none easier, save only the role of the man who sneers alike at both criticism and performance.
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
CONCLUSION
Yes, most of the bureaucrats and politicians in D.C. are not interested in solving problems—like those with the IRS. They want to talk about this small change and that small change. They want to debate the benefits but not really solve anything. Why? Because they know that actually solving a problem renders them irrelevant. When a problem is solved, “experts” like them are no longer needed and they would have to find other ways to earn a living.
These people are great critics of people like us who are promoting a reform that actually transfers power from them back to the people while increasing everyone’s prosperity—not just the favored few who purchase tax benefits.
Many of these people in D.C. have never actually worked in the private sector. They often spend their whole lives working for the government or a think tank or university. They are, for the most part, very bright people. Unfortunately, they believe that they and only they really know what’s best for us. Since the uneducated masses can never understand what’s good for them, they think their role is to tell everyone else what to do and to criticize any plan anyone else comes up with.
The agreement in D.C. seems to be—if enough people like them believe something and it can be shown on a spreadsheet, it is the way to go.
If their solutions don’t work, or even worsen the problem, that’s not their fault. If their solution fails, it’s always because the people charged with implementing it are incompetent, or they didn’t follow the plan correctly.
While Roosevelt’s audience may have been a “distinguished group of scholars and intellectuals,” the real audience he sought to reach was people like us. He was saying to all of us that it is important not to just talk about problems but to put your efforts into solving them. Even if it seems that there is no way to win, you have to try.
Enacting the FAIRtax isn’t going to solve all of DC’s problems. There will still be disagreements over policy and how to best spend the money that the FAIRtax will raise. However, one thing will be fixed. D.C. will no longer be able to hide payoffs to their favored groups deep in an incomprehensible tax code. They’ll have to be put in legislation where they can be much more easily discovered.
The job of restoring freedom and prosperity will continue after the FAIRtax is passed. However, passing the FAIRtax will be a giant step toward reaching the goal.
In an October 29, 1941 speech to the Harrow school for boys, his alma mater, Winston Churchill said, Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never-in nothing, great or small, large or petty…
IT IS TIME FOR US TO TAKE BACK CONTROL AND DEMAND THAT CONGRESS PASS THE FAIRTAX!
WHAT CAN EACH OF US DO?
We can write letters and make calls to our elected representatives and attend Zoom town hall meetings demanding that if they really want to allow Americans to “TAKE BACK CONTROL”, the first step is to eliminate the income/payroll tax system and enact the FAIRTAX!
We all should remember Edmund Burke’s warning that applies to our efforts to TAKE BACK CONTROL, “Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.”
If you want to prevent the IRS from being further weaponized to punish those of us who may object to the D.C. opinions and dictates of what is good for us, then help us PASS THE FAIRTAX!
The IRS will be gone and we will pay our taxes when we make purchases. WE and not D.C. Elites will decide how much federal tax we pay!
If you have friends who don’t know about the FAIRtax, send them to FAIRtax.org. Have them watch the white boards under “How It Works” and, if they agree, ask them to please join us.
Then contact your Members of Congress and the President and demand that Congress pass -the FAIRtax—the only fair tax.
Remember, if we don't continue to tell the truth and demand a change, then this quote from George Orwell's 1984 may foretell our children's future:
“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.”
Is it hopeless? When confronted with a seemingly impossible problem, remember the statement attributed to the author George Bernard Shaw who wrote, You see things; and you say “Why?” But I dream things that never were; and I say “Why not?”
Isn’t it time for us to ask, “Why not?”
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