Fair Tax, Congressman Cramer and His Challenger
November 28th, 2007 by Steve
When Brian noted that Ray McKee is running against Bud Cramer for Congress in Alabama’s Fifth Congressional District, he quite reasonably asked people to justify their opposition to Cramer:
A couple of days ago WVNN morning show host Dale Jackson hit on a key question about Bud Cramer (D), north Alabama’s U.S. congressman. He pointed out that he frequently hears anti-Cramer comments from his presumably majority Republican audience, but he wanted callers to justify their opposition to Cramer. I thought it was a very appropriate solicitation because from my perspective there just aren’t that many reasons for voters to oppose him other than the fact that he is a Democrat.
Brian points out that Cramer has bucked the Democratic machine quite a few times. Cramer sounds reasonable in that respect, but it should also be mentioned that Cramer has voted with Bush on most of these occasions, too.
Brian qualifies his position, to some degree:
Personally, I have one major beef with Cramer: his refusal to endorse and co-sponsor the FairTax. There is broad support for the bill in his district and it fits in very nicely with his general philosophy on taxation. I would guess that his refusal to get on board can be attributed a couple of things. One, like most politicians he covets the power that the income tax offers him. Two, he is hesitant to blatantly oppose Nancy Pelosi, who is rumored to have black listed the FairTax.
I’ll admit that the FairTax is my pet rock and I will likely vote for a challenger who supports the bill.
Unlike Brian and like Ron Paul, I’m still sitting on the fence on the Fair Tax. It could become an improvement over the current system of taxation, but I am primarily concerned about issues relating to the repeal of the 16th Amendment.
I asked Neal Boortz about the 16th Amendment issues at an event in DC a few months ago and he said he’ll be addressing them in his new book. In the mean time, I’ve plugged his upcoming book but am still undecided on this issue.
With respect to McKee, I’ll provide the following observations. To begin, he showed up at a recent Ron Paul event in the Huntsville area. This proves he was smart enough to know where the local political action was, unlike other local politicians who wouldn’t approach the same draw.
McKee didn’t, however, answer questions about political issues not directly related to taxation. His website and the campaign flier I picked up from him only deal with one general issue: The Fair Tax.
Point in his favor: He’s actually concerned about the tax burden for the poor. This makes him as unique among Republicans as Ron Paul. The flash animation on his site reflects what he told me in person.
Point against McKee: Single issue candidates never win, especially against entrenched incumbent congressional candidates.
I’ve local blue collar friends who hate Cramer (mostly because of the Second Amendment issue), but vote for him (mostly because of union support) anyway. I’ve Republican friends who vote for him, mostly because he votes with Republicans. I’ve progressive friends who don’t like Cramer because of his voting record — one actually ran against him before. I still (sort of) like him because he isn’t afraid to buck the system, but I dislike a lot of his votes. I hear he’s good on constituent services and a friend of mine has a VA issue. We’ll see how that one turns out.
Based upon initial anecdotal impressions from the field, I’ll suggest that McKee will go down with about the same amount of flames as a Libertarian Party candidate and north Alabamians will continue to be upset because they re-elected the man they didn’t hate enough to not re-elect.
In the meantime, I’d suggest that the honorable Mr. McKee take some charisma classes.
4 Responses to “Fair Tax, Congressman Cramer and His Challenger”
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Eric Dondero wrote on 11/28/07 at 12:27 pm :
Biggest story of the day: Muslim Riots in Paris. Worse than 2005. The Urban Guerillas backed by Hezbolah are now shooting at the cops. Rioting has spread to Toulouse in the south of France.
And nothing but complete silence on all the libertarian blogs and websites, including GordonUnleashed.
More important to talk about issues like the Fair Tax. Never mind that Paris is burning. Let’s discuss Tax proposals.
Eric Dondero's Mustache wrote on 11/29/07 at 2:08 am :
AND DAPPER DAN BRO.
Ray McKee wrote on 12/10/07 at 4:06 pm :
I want to thank Steve for even mentioning my name on a blog. I’m thankful for any publicity I can get. However, there are a couple of comments I have to make. First of all, I did not show up at a Ron Paul event, I was invited. But I do have great respect for the Ron Paul volunteers and wish they were working for me. Second, I was an engineer for 35 years; engineers solve problems; engineers do not have charisma. I am working harder at that, but I did not think it appropriate to try to campaign excessively at someone else’s event. Growing up, I never learned to smile, so I hope people will listen to the message more than judging the messanger by his charisma. Thanks again, Steve.
Anonymous wrote on 02/9/08 at 12:52 pm :
Get off your fence on the idiot fairtax.
That shows me you just can’t think for yourself, that this is all a big charade. You dont have the common sense to see past this snake oil nonsense they call”fair tax”, but you want to be some commentator out of central casting.
Fairtax is like those magic pills they sold stupid people, to get 100 miles a gallon in their 1956 Studabaker Lark.
Do you know that fairtax taxes the federal government, to pay for the federal government?
This ALONE should make fairtax morons laughed off the stage.
NEal Boortz wrote “The federal government itself will become a major taxpayer” (Page 148 in his Fair Tax Book, aka “There is a sucker born every minute”)
Tax the federal government to pay for the federal government. Hello, McFly!!!
Thats like me pretending I can pay myself 10,000 to cut my own grass. I can write the check, I can even deposit the check, I can do this every day. But at the end of the month, I don’t have 300,000 dollars.
Thats PART of the FT shell game, house of cards. There are other absurdities.
Fair tax has to PRETEND it can tax the federal government. It cant — but if FT didnt pretend this absurdity, the tax rate would have to be 35-40%. So they pretend.
Its not the ONLY pretense. We are just getting started.
Fairtax has to pretend it can tax people on their health care — and get 460 billion from these people. If Fairtax admits it can’t get 460 billion — it would have to admit the rate would be higher.
Fairtax can PRETEND to tax cancer patients 30,000 in sales tax; it can pretend to nursing home patients $25,000, it can pretend to tax $70,000 the parents of a child with leukemia. It can pretend all it wants.
Fifteen million Americans have cancer, 40 million Americans have other expensive diseases, 2 million elderly struggle in nursing homes– incredibly, THESE are the people hit with the huge new sales tax.
I got news for you. They are gonna scream bloody murder.
And if you think Congressmen will say “Pay the tax and shut up, grandma” you gotta another think coming pal. Congress would exempt health care so fast, your Fairtax book would spin.
There are MORE absurdities in this loony plan. 40 million Americans rent their living space - and Fairtax taxes each one of them. I be there aren’t ten renters in America who know their rent would go up 30-40%-50%.
And Im not even going in to other huge absurdities, like trying to tax new home sales, new car sales. Cause those sales would fall like a rock, and you wouldn’t have much revenue from those markets.
In short — Fairtax can’t possibly generate the revenue they need - 2.3 trillion. To generate that kind of money, from the things they COULD put a sales tax on, they would need a tax rate of 70-90%.
Imagine — Imagine you woke up one morning, and the Fairtax is now law.
Your rent just went up 400 dollars. Your utility bill just went up 200 dollars.
If you need back surgery — that just went up 10-30,000 dollars. If you need to stay in the hospital a while - that just went up 9,000 dollars.
Imagine someone sending you a “prebate” check for 250 dollars to cover those taxes.
Imagine when you complain — they tell you “Hey bro — don’t bitch, you get to keep your entire paycheck.”
Imagine you want to buy a new car for 25,000 dollars. Only the salesman said now, by taxes, the car cost 40,000 dollars, and you need 15,000 down payment.
Imagine if you have any insurance premiums — to anyone, for anything — house, care, health care. Those premiums are taxed — and just went up 30-40%
Welcome to the Fairtax world, son.