Joe ‘The Plumber’ Wurzelbacher Supports the Fair Tax and the Welfare State

Conservatoid nimrod Joe Wurzelbacher, the plumber and wanna-be entrepreneur from Holland, Ohio who gained fame for his opposition to President Obama’s “spread-the-wealth” plan that he touted on the final leg of Election 2008, appeared on Sean Hannity’s show Hannity on Fox News to not only bring support for a Tea Party rally in Atlanta, Georgia on April 15, 2009 (a.k.a. Tax Day), but to urge Americans to support the Fair Tax. He calls upon Americans to “become their own lobbyists. Actually become their own lobbyists. Don’t listen to the Washington guys. Become their own lobbyists. Vote the IRS out, vote the Fair Tax in.” As soon as he gave that, a huge cry of anti-Federal Income Tax protestors at the Tea Party rally could be heard, screaming, “Fair Tax! Fair Tax! Fair Tax! Fair Tax! Fair Tax! Fair Tax! Fair Tax! Fair Tax! Fair Tax! Fair Tax!” Hannity then, in a smug fashion, says, “You know why I call it Boortz Land” (in reference to “libertarian” Atlanta talk radio show host Neal Boortz).

Of course, Hannity and Wurzelbacher switch the discussion from the Fair Tax to their disgust with the Obama administration’s “downplaying” of the War on Terror by calling it “an overseas contingent operation.” Hannity asks Wurzelbacher:

HANNITY: This is amazing. But they — if you have a pro-life bumper sticker on your car, if you have an “America is overtaxed” bumper sticker, if you have a pro-Second Amendment bumper sticker, they’re viewing you potentially as a radical.

My question…

(BOOS)

My question is, if those are right-wing radicals, does that mean that somebody that starts their political career in Bill Ayers’ house and hangs out with Jeremiah Wright for 20 years…

(CHEERS)

What does that make them?

WURZELBACHER: I’ll tell you what, let me ask you one more question. Am I an extremist for saying, “in God we trust”?

HANNITY: No.

(CHEERS)

And by the way, and I said God bless America.

And by the way, we might want to steal a phrase from Jeremiah Wright.

President Obama, there’s 15,000 to 20,000 people here. You know what, if I was Jeremiah Wright, I’d probably say, America’s voters have come home to roost.

It doesn’t help that there’s a Tea Party anti-tax protestor who’s holding up a sign while Wurzelbacher’s speaking to Hannity that reads:

2 Steps to Save the USA: Fair Tax and Term Limits

While it sounds great in theory that term limits will “save the USA” by limiting the length of time served by a congressional Republican or Democrat in office, it will not accomplish that any more than slapping a carbon tax on CO2 levels will save the Earth from Global Warming. Term limits will not stop the corruption in the Congress and the Senate, considering new blood replacing the term-limited old blood can be just as corrupt as well. Term limits will not allow congressman and senators to abide by the Constitution. After all, we have term limits on the Presidency, and the Office of the Presidency has violated the founding document countless numbers of times. Why should we expect anything to be different when a new term-limited Congress convenes?

As for the Fair Tax, it will not be any fairer than the Federal Income Tax imposed upon us by the dreaded IRS. The Fair Tax, which promises to do away with the FIT and replace it with the FT, is alleged to be a 23 percent rate on the sales of all goods in the U.S. ($23 on every $100 spent in total, even though its calculation is similar to income taxes). However, the actual rate would be 30 percent on the sales of all goods in the U.S. (meaning $30 on every $77 spent before taxes).

Plus, the bad part about this tax scheme is that it creates a new bureaucracy, which would oversee the imposition of the tax at the federal level. Proponents of the tax say that the new tax would just be done at the state level rather than at the federal level, but that’s just political sophistry. Even the FT opponents know this, countering that compliance would not be carried out by the individual, and that massive tax evasion could result. While the first part of their claim would most likely happen, the last part of the opponent’s argument is speculative. It implies that the current system is better than the alternative. In actuality, the new tax could bring about a new underground economy, as many other opponents observe, because intermediate goods and services are factors of production and can be exempt and are not final sales on the purchases.

Moreover, another reason to oppose the Fair Tax is the fact that the proposed legislation favors a welfare state approach. It can issue checks to the Fair Taxpayers in advance, acting as welfare handouts to them in the process. Family households under the new system would receive what would be prominently known as a “Family Consumption Allowance” — a tax rebate (or “prebate”) — that would easily be used as welfare cash handouts to families in advance for twelve months. A new welfare state can be easily generated because of this. Is this what the conservatives have in mind when they say that they are “anti-tax”? Shouldn’t they just drop the “anti-tax” moniker and just say that they are “anti-Federal Income Tax” but pro-tax on other areas, including inflation and the Fair Tax?

And with this system in place, how would it be “fair” to everyone involved? I thought conservatives were against creating welfare classes. But of course not! They’re only against welfare if it doesn’t serve their interests and doesn’t profit from it. How “pro-American” and “pro-liberty” all of that is!

And, as for the final part of the anti-Fair Tax argument, does anyone really believe that the conservatives, including Boortz and Hannity, will really push for the elimination of the Federal Income Tax and replace it with this new tax? This legislation can easily be amended to keep the original tax and tack on the new tax to go with it. That would mean that the IRS would still be in business, and Americans would be getting their federal income tax refund checks and begin to receive their new monthly “prebate” checks as well.

It should be of no surprise that conservatives like Wurzelbacher, who is also pro-Iraq War, pro-Israeli government, and pro-Fair Tax, is also pro-welfare state. Like Hannity, he also supports the warfare state as well. That’s another part of the welfare state that conservatives love so much because they benefit from it.

Isn’t it time for them to stop saying that they are for liberty and are for government, conservative-style? But then again, isn’t this what you would expect from the old, tired Republican siren song that continues to be played every time they lose the White House and both Houses of the Congress?

Here’s the video of Wurzelbacher and Hannity at the Tea Party “anti-tax” rally in Atlanta, Georgia:

[Cross-posted at The Freeman Chronicles.]

Boston Tea Party Founder Tom Knapp and BTP At-Large Member Steve Trinward Resign from the BTP National Committee and the BTP

It looks official: Boston Tea Party founder and KN@PPSTER blogger Thomas L. Knapp has just dropped a huge ball on the BTP members and supporters by posting a message to the BTPNC Yahoo Group list, announcing that he was resigning from the Boston Tea National Committee and the Party as well.

This is what he said:

To whom it may concern,

I have resigned from the party, which in effect means that I’ve resigned my national committee seat (and any admin role on the site, since my resignation consisted of deleting my account).

I apologize for putting the committee through yet another vacancy-filling election. I also apologize for what looks like, but was not, a suddenly undertaken decision to resign. It’s been coming for some time, and the latest episode of “whatever Tom Knapp says has implications for the party” was the straw that broke the camel’s back. It’s never been JUST my party, but that card’s been played so many times that the only way to get it out of the tricksters’ deck is for it not to be even partly my party.

I will leave this Yahoo! group as soon as I post this message. Naturally, I continue to welcome personal correspondence with any or all of you.

Best regards,
Tom Knapp

Of course, I have forwarded the post to the BTPNC-Talk list, which is also on Yahoo Groups’ server.

Interestingly enough, an hour and 14 minutes later, At-Large Member Steve Trinward (a former Libertarian Party member and Tennessee LP member who once served on the LP’s Libertarian National Committee some years ago) decided to follow suit by posting his resignation on the same list.
Here’s Trinward’s resignation as well:

Dammit, Tommy – Now I look a copycat.

I too am formally resigning from this whatever it is … when I get a chance I will likely drop off the membership as well.

This has also been coming for a while, but other parts of my life have taken precedence. They continue to do so …

This latest “resolution” is just the final straw. The effort to “amend” faulty language, while dealing with neither of Tom’s concerns as he raised them, says it all. This is just another right-wing cover group, no more worth my energies than any other out there.

it’s been … interesting – Steve Trinward.

Trinward’s gripe with a “resolution” is in reference to a resolution I authored and amended (see an incoming separate post, which will discuss the motion [original and amended] in great detail). Basically, this resolution condemns and repudiates President Barack Obama’s backpedaling on the war in Iraq, which I believe was well-worded and no other objections were raised (except that Tom issued his concerns about my proposed motion). Former BTP Chairman and current Kansas BTP Chairman Jim Davidson responded to Tom’s concerns, which is something that Trinward didn’t even to notice.

I’m not sorry to see Trinward go. He has been highly unproductive and hasn’t been voting on a number of motions, although he did manually vote on the first two resolutions after I became Secretary of the BTP. I am, however, disappointed and sad that Tom decided not to make a formal announcement of his departure from the Committee and the Party to the party base. After all, the BTP is and always will be his baby, and he is and always will be credited for that.

Although Knapp doesn’t want me to publish my private correspondence with him, I will not do it. This is out of respect for the man, so people can draw their own conclusions as to why he left the Party.

[Cross-posted at The Freeman Chronicles.]

Boston Tea Party Founder and At-Large Member Tom Knapp Introduces Pro-Second Amendment Resolution to the BTPNC

Boston Tea Party founder and At-Large Member Thomas L. Knapp has introduced an excellent pro-Second Amendment resolution to the party’s own National Committee discussion list on Yahoo Groups. Seconds later, he issued an amendment to his resolution removing the word “both” in the phrase “it is both the constitutional obligation.” I seconded this revised version of the moved resolution just seconds after he sent it to the list.

Here are the original and amended versions of the resolution. Either way, it’s an outstanding one, given Attorney Generalissimo Eric Holder’s promise to restore the old, god-awful 1994 assault weapons ban that expired in 2004. (Here’s former BTP Chairman Jim Davidson’s assessment of Holder’s plan to revive the expired gun law.)

Here’s the original version of the resolution:

Whereas, every man, woman, and responsible child is possessed of a natural, fundamental, and inalienable human, individual, civil, and constitutional right to obtain, own, and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon — handgun, shotgun, rifle, machine gun, anything — any time, anywhere, without asking anyone’s permission; and

Whereas it is both the constitutional obligation of government to respect and defend, rather than suppress, that right; and

Whereas all attempts by government to institute measures of victim disarmament, a/k/a “gun control,” are illegal, unconstitutional, subversive of public safety and morally repugnant;

Be it resolved that the Boston Tea Party opposes all new victim disarmament legislation and all attempts to re-impose past victim disarmament schemes, including but not limited to the Obama administration’s contemplated re-introduction of an “assault weapons” ban.

Here’s the revised version that’s currently pending and is to be discussed later today:

Whereas, every man, woman, and responsible child is possessed of a natural, fundamental, and inalienable human, individual, civil, and constitutional right to obtain, own, and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon — handgun, shotgun, rifle, machine gun, anything — any time, anywhere, without asking anyone’s permission; and

Whereas it is the constitutional obligation of government to respect and defend, rather than suppress, that right; and

Whereas all attempts by government to institute measures of victim disarmament, a/k/a “gun control,” are illegal, unconstitutional, subversive of public safety and morally repugnant;

Be it resolved that the Boston Tea Party opposes all new victim disarmament legislation and all attempts to re-impose past victim disarmament schemes, including but not limited to the Obama administration’s contemplated re-introduction of an “assault weapons” ban.

Any BTP member and liberty lover is encouraged to spread this far and wide as much as possible.

[Cross-posted to The Freeman Chronicles.]

It’s Official: I’m the Boston Tea Party’s Newly-Elected Secretary

It’s official: I’m the Boston Tea Party‘s newly-elected secretary on the National Committee. The special election for the seat ended on Tuesday, February 23, and all the votes were finalized by the party’s own chair on the same day.

I will be — and have already started being — faithfully aggressive in fighting for transparency on the board, as I have promised my voters in the Party. And I’ve already started my duties after having immediately taken the Secretary seat.

Any loyal BTP member who wants any pro-freedom resolutions or would like to offer pro-freedom motions to be put on the table, please feel to let me know at my email addy here.

[Cross-posted to The Freeman Chronicles.]