Nothing Certain Except Death and a Fair Tax

Every week, we receive more bad news about the American economy. Last week was no exception.

The Fed began monetizing the national debt, while China's gross domestic product for the third quarter expanded 8.9 percent from the previous quarter, Dagong (the Chinese quasi-government ratings agency) downgraded the credit rating of the United States, and billionaire George Soros expanded his global economic warlording by opening an office in Hong Kong — advancing his goal of making China a part of the new world order.

If America ever needed economic stability, it is now. And that is why I'm espousing that we advance on our new representatives to address the one thing that could stabilize and rebuild our economy: tax reform (or, even better, replacement).

The Heritage Foundation figured that even President Barack Obama's 2011 budget calls for $2 trillion in higher taxes over 10 years — and that's after accounting for the $154 billion in additional tax revenue that would result from Obama's allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire for families making more than $250,000 a year. And what will 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015 have in store for our taxes? More of the same!

The fact is — and President Obama knows it all too well — that even if Washington makes extreme spending cuts, the only way the feds can pay for rapidly escalating national deficits, debts, entitlements and their extravagant expenditures is to double your taxes over the next decade.

What we need now more than ever is a flat tax or the FairTax.

Why?

First, because the Internal Revenue Service is an unconstitutional system that is totally overreaching and overpowering for our republic, as well as a bureaucratic nightmare for anyone caught in its auditing web. It has no checks or balances; it can't be held accountable by we the people.

Secondly, as it stands, the present tax code penalizes productivity and cripples entrepreneurs and our capitalist economy. As The Heritage Foundation reports, the top 10 percent of income earners pay 71 percent of income taxes, and more than a third of U.S. households pay no income taxes at all; 47 percent pay no federal taxes.

It's time we had a system through which people don't have to figure out ways to cheat in order to save their money. As my friend Mike Huckabee says, "the FairTax is a completely transparent tax system. It doesn't increase taxes. It's revenue-neutral. But here's what it will do: It will bring business back to the United States that is leaving our shores because our tax laws make it impossible for an American-based business to compete. ... The FairTax was designed by economists from Harvard and Stanford and some of the leading think tanks across the country."

In short, the FairTax would do away with all taxes and put in their place a single consumption (fair) tax, which is the closest and most practical modern proposal for a taxation system favored by America's Founders.

Our Founding Fathers did not penalize productivity through taxes the way we do today. They had no IRS. They believed in minimal taxation. They did not pay income taxes, which were prohibited by the Constitution. They did not pay export taxes, which also were prohibited by the Constitution. But they did tax imports. They believed in free trade within our own borders and a system of tariffs on imported goods.

Thomas Jefferson shared with Gouverneur Morris in 1793, "It must be observed that our revenues are raised almost wholly on imported goods."

If the Founding Fathers were alive today, I truly believe they would support the FairTax. As James Madison said, "taxes on consumption are always least burdensome because they are least felt and are borne, too, by those who are both willing and able to pay them. ... Of all taxes on consumption, those on foreign commerce are most compatible with the genius and policy of free states."

To put it simply, our representatives need to answer today the question Thomas Jefferson asked at the dawn of our republic: "Would it not be better to simplify the system of taxation rather than to spread it over such a variety of subjects and pass the money through so many new hands?"

I believe that the new majority in Congress should take up a tax replacement system, just as the previous majority took up Obamacare. Obamacare will take billions of dollars from taxpayers; the FairTax would put billions back in their pockets.

Friends, we must keep fighting. We've changed the tides in Washington. Now we must crash the waves of reform upon its powers.

Educate yourself about the FairTax by going to http://www.FairTax.org. If others are not familiar with the FairTax, introduce it to them, including various political groups in your area and one of the 2,800 tea party gatherings across the country. Also, call the president and your representatives and convey to them your passion on the issue. (The phone number for representatives and senators is 202-224-3121, and the president's is 202-456-1414.)

Benjamin Franklin once wrote, "In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes." It's high time we changed that saying to read, "In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and a FairTax."

To find out more about Chuck Norris and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.