A Little Puzzling
By Art Gallagher
Three weeks before the election and CD-6 candidate Anna Little is introducing the “Fair Tax” into the debate.
Yesterday before the Asbury Park Press editorial board and last evening before the Northern Monmouth Chamber of Commerce’s candidates forum, Little proposed eliminating the federal income tax and replacing it with a 23% sales tax. She spoke frankly of expanding the pool of taxpayers to the 50% of workers who do not now pay federal income taxes.
The state Democratic Committee and the Pallone campaign were both taping her remarks at the Northern Monmouth Chamber event. The sound quality was poor. Little should hope that it is not usable for Frank Pallone’s next commercial. She should stop talking about the fair tax and increasing taxes on people who don’t pay them now for the rest of the campaign. She should talk vaguely about reforming the tax code, if she must.
The fair tax is not necessarily a bad idea. However it is a radical change from our present system and easily demagogued. Little doesn’t have the resources to explain it and sell it to the public in the next three weeks. She has the resources to win, just barely.
45% of the voters don’t know enough about Anna Little to form an opinion, according to the Monmouth University poll, yet she is within single digits of knocking off the 22 year incumbent Pallone.
With three weeks to ago, Little can win if she addresses the voters anger over the economy and Pelosi-Pallone’s reckless spending. She can win if she returns to the empathetic and optimistic message she delivered so well early in the campaign.
Now is the time to keep it simple. Make Pallone defend himself. If Little spends the rest of the campaign defending her proposals, she looses. If she relates to voters concerns, which no one does better than she does when she is on her game, and reminds voters of the numerous reasons for vote against Pallone, she wins. Little doesn’t have the resources to convince voters to vote for her. The voters are already inclined to vote against Pallone. They just need a Little push.
More from my site
LITTLE: DOES PALLONE NOT KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A TAX ‘CUT’ AND A TAX ‘HIKE?’ OR HIS HE DELIBERATELY TELLING UNTRUTHS?
Has Murray Changed His Mind, Or Has He Lost It?
Musings on the Monmouth University CD-6 Poll
Enough is Enough
Real Clear Politics: CD-6 A Toss UP!? APP: Pallone Leads By Nearly 2-1- LITTLE TO PALLONE: WHAT OTHER DECISIONS DID YOU TRY TO INFLUENCE BECAUSE SOMEBODY GAVE YOU CAMPAIGN CASH?
LITTLE TO PALLONE: WHAT OTHER DECISIONS DID YOU TRY TO INFLUENCE BECAUSE SOMEBODY GAVE YOU CAMPAIGN CASH?
LITTLE: PALLONE SEEMS TO THINK YOU CAN AFFORD A $1,862/YEAR TAX HIKE. REALLY.- LITTLE: PALLONE CAST DECIDING VOTE TO ADJOURN BEFORE ACTING TO PREVENT MASSIVE TAX HIKE
LITTLE: CONGRESSIONAL INACTION ON TAX RATES IS IRRESPONSIBLE
Art,
I would add one caveat to your suggestions.
I would also hammer home that Pallone (in his own words) that the Health Care Bill was his bill. Seniors are getting angrier and angrier over it. Stories are abounding about Insurance Companies dropping Medicare Advantage programs because they can’t afford them and seniors are forced into very expensive plans.
One man’s thoughts…
Agreed. Rather than talk about how to tax tax tax to afford the current level of government spending, Little should be explaining what and how to cut, even back to 2008 levels as I’ve heard her suggest before, and then to 2000 levels or 1980s levels.
IMO, the message should be about cutting spending, then cutting more spending, then cutting a little more spending – NOT about replacing one obnoxious tax with another so that we can continue to fund the same government programs and projects that over-regulate and stifle economic growth.
True/related story – after the Delaware Primary – I heard Christine O’Donnell on TV say “[the Democrats] won’t let your kids have a sugary drink or candy bar, but they’ll pay for your child’s abortion”. I suppose her message was supposed to imply that the Democrats were hypocrites, but then what she really was saying to me was that she supports allowing sugary drinks, and abortions, or she doesn’t support either; I was confused, and now *think* she’s a hypocrite.
Either way, my opinion, as if it matters, is that Little needs to avoid be called a hypocrite – bad mouthing one tax in favor of another tax – by the average voter and stick to promoting whatever authority and power Congress has to cut programs, eliminate regulatory agencies and end funding for wasteful or unnecessary projects… or maybe the bigger problem is that our system is so broken that Congress has no such authority to “change” such spending habits.
Art,
You wrote, “With three weeks to ago, Little can win if she addresses the voters anger over the economy and Pelosi-Pallone’s reckless spending”.
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Fair Tax – H.R. 25 – is about the economy. There is $500 Billion in wasted paperwork that would find itself back into the economy with the elimination of the income tax. In addition, we would stop taxing productivity, at least as far as the income tax goes.
This type of innovative plan that Anna Little supports is the type of initiative that helped her beat the establishment candidate in the Primary.
I think that voters are fed up with status quo candidates who just say enough to manipulate emotions.
Tell it like it is Anna and you will win because you are Anna.
I disagree. With all due respect, this is the same kind of timid pragmatism that has given us decades of “me-too” Republican RINOs who are largely indistinguishable from Democrats in practice. It’s the kind of self-defeatism that led Karl Rove to torpedo his party’s own candidate in Delaware on national television. I’m sorry, but I and many of my fellow voters are absolutely *fed up with this* and will not take it anymore.
“Speak in generalities, don’t be specific,” and “Don’t take political risks, the people are too ignorant to be ready for it” — these are not the right message for a nation going through the kind of profound political and cultural changes that ours now is. And in this kind of climate, you don’t win by setting your sights low, and compromising your principles for pragmatist expediency. As Dick Morris has (I think correctly) observed, the rules for past elections are out the window this year. If the right message can’t win in this firestorm of outrage against statist overreach, then it can’t win at all and we should just give up.
In my view you either act in moral self-confidence when you believe you are right, or you lose the initiative and the political and moral high ground. That’s why I’m supporting Anna Little. I’m fed up to my nostrils with vague and compromising politicians, and she’s one of the most profoundly principled candidates I’ve ever seen. She would NOT have won the primary, be where she is in the polls, or earned the unprecedented loyalty of her ‘army’ of supporters in the first place, if she were the kind of candidate you’re suggesting here that she become.
Anna Little is a rare candidate who acts on the courage of her convictions, and the FairTax is just the latest example. Undoubtedly she will be attacked, and Anna is prepared to give Frank Pallone a nasty surprise if he tries.
FairTax is experiencing attack ads all over the country, and candidates in North Carolina and Georgia were successful in getting them pulled. Their backers learned that this time things are different. Attacks on the FairTax backfire. When voters are told only half of the truth and not told that the FairTax also eliminates payroll and income taxes, as well as the taxes that are embedded in the cost of every good you buy and service you use, voters turn.
Embedded taxes and Social Security and payroll taxes are the two most regressive taxes today – and the FairTax ends them. In addtion to that, the FairTax pays a rebate in advance to everyone in America with a valid Social Security Number to un-tax every person for spending on essentials up to the poverty level.
The FairTax is the only tax that effectively captures the illegal and underground economy.
With the FairTax, you pay tax on what you spend, not what you earn. The FairTax lets you decide through your spending, NOT the IRS, how much tax you pay and when you pay it. You take home your entire paycheck and skip the April 15 ritual because there is no more IRS. You “do your taxes” at the cash register or at the mail box, and walk away with no chance of an audit.
The FairTax is the only tax, existing or proposed, that meets all four tests of sound tax policy: it is transparent, efficient, conducive to econimic growth, and, yes, fair.
Anna Little is to be commended for standing her ground.
My impression yesterday was that she spoke more (and in detail) about the flat tax, and only mentioned the fair tax at the end (as a “by the way, also check out fairtax.org”).
To Art’s credit, wholesale changes in how taxes are levied often affect lots of other issues, like what will happen to my state and property tax exemptions. Those issues then have to be explained, and you can’t create that big of a discussion in 3 weeks with limited money.
To Art’s discredit, Joe Biden just made the same point this week about the Democrats having too much to explain.
The again, since it is Biden, he probably plagiarized it from Art.
The FairTax would eliminate all payroll taxes for both the employee and employer, effectively, giving every worker a 7.5% pay raise. Also, it provides for a prebate for every household (based on household size) that rebates the sales tax up to the povery level.
The FairTax is highly stimulative and would be advantageous to just about everyone in NJ making less than $100,000 per year.
Art’s 100% correct. People who are not paying taxes right now do not want to even think about adding 23% to the price of everything they buy.
$10 movie ticket becomes $12.30
$100 grocery trip becomes $123
$10,000 car becomes $12,300
There is no way to rationalize or justify this people who have no understanding of tax codes and do not pay income taxes in just 3 weeks.
Bad, bad move, Anna.
All the previous posts explained why Pallone/Holt will win.
@ Joe Schlip
The fair tax is NOT an additional tax. It an ‘instead of’ tax. Right now, New Jersians are paying about 23% taxes on everything we buy – WE JUST DON’T KNOW IT, because we don’t see it. Everyone knows they pay state sales tax, because they see it on their receipt. The fair tax would put the national taxes that we’re currently paying on items clearly on the bottom of the receipt, just like the state tax is.
The fair tax would also eliminate all income tax, corporate tax, investment tax – which only 50% of the people pay now.
So to recap:
“$10 movie ticket becomes $12.30” -> wrong, it stays $10.
“$100 grocery trip becomes $123” -> wrong, it stays $100.
“$10,000 car becomes $12,300” -> wrong, it stays $10,000.
Mike from NJ, you’re wrong. If 50% of people don’t pay any income taxes and they will have to pay flat tax, then the price of those goods and services that they purchase WILL increase.
Further, wealthy (and all people, in fact) people will do much of their big purchases before the flat tax goes into effect, thus negating the effect of the flat tax. New cars, boats, vacation homes, etc., will all be purchased leading to a bump in the economy. Then for two to three years after the flat tax takes effect, sales of big-ticket items will collapse.
It’s a bad idea and three weeks before an election is NOT the time to pitch this to the voting public.
RE: Joe Slip (@12:52PM),
Anything can be made complicated regardless of how simple it starts out. Perhaps you are overlooking your unnecessary complication of this issue.
I agree with you that it would not be a good idea to support a Flat Tax. However, we are addressing Fair Tax (H.R. 25).
It is true that the 50% of people who do not currently pay income tax will pay Fair Tax. And that is why we must adopt it – to spread the burden to every illegal alien, tax evader, and tax structurer. The others, who are not
hiding, will be able to receive a prebate to compensate for their possible low income needs.
There have been over $25 million in consumer supported (not government supported) studies over 30 years – many that indicate that the economy will boom. Sales of big ticket items will not collapse as you suggest.
This is not a new idea. I think that there are over 100 Republican candidates this year supporting it.
This is not a new idea that Anna just threw into the campaign yesterday as you suggest. I attended a Tea Party meeting during the Primary (in March?) where she said that she supported Fair Tax. And it has been on her web site. Just ask some of the people who have been involved with the Tea Parties.
As far as I can tell, Fair Tax is only one of many ideas that compliment each other to form her winning campaign platform.
It is a good idea to continue to support the platform that got her here today. It would be a bad idea to modify her platform simply because you just noticed one aspect of it.
Gene Baldassari is right. Anna’s support for the Fair Tax has been on her website right from the start, and I also heard her state it in a TP forum in May. It’s part of the platform that got her where she is today. If you think this is news, then with all due respect you haven’t been paying attention.
RE: Joe Slip (@12:52PM),
The prices for items will NOT go up, because you are already paying 23% taxes on the items BEFORE the state sales tax is added on, you just don;t know it. Right now, the manufacturers are taxed, and they’re not going to let the taxes decrease their profit margins, so they raise the price slightly to compensate for the taxes. The same is true for everyone straight down to the retailers that you purchase the product from – no company is going to allow taxes to take a piece out of their profits (if they can avoid it).
They can avoid this, and they do – by raising the cost of the items to compensate for the taxes that they pay. You just don;t know they do it because they don’t have to tell you that they’re doing it.
With the fair tax, they would have to tell you the real price of the item, and the real cost of the taxes you’re paying on the item – state and otherwise.
@Joe and Art
And Anna’s been talking about the fair tax since before the primary, and it’s been on her issues section of her campaign website since the same time. She’s not just starting to talk about it – she’s been saying it all along, which is 1 of the reasons she’s doing so well.
I fully support a new tax system that’s not progressive (meaning, my earned dollar is not worth less than the dollar earned by someone else), and that everyone contributes to.
However, my main issue with the Fair Tax is what happens with people who saved money all their life. They were taxed when they earned the money they saved, and will be taxed again when they spend it.
That’s why, I’d rather support a flat tax now.
Mike, yes, companies pay income tax rates now and that cost is built into prices of goods and services BUT, if a national sales tax is imposed, the supplies companies purchase to run their businesses and construct the goods that they sell will be subject to that 23% tax and those prices, too, will be added to the cost of goods and services you pay meaning that prices of goods and services will not magically drop without the income and corporate taxes.
And Chris is also correct; this will crush seniors.
.. and for God’s sakes, promise to CUT SPENDING-THAT’S WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ALL YEAR!.. there is NO time to start on philosophies of what’s fairer than what we have now, while everyone’s losing their homes and not finding work!..FOCUS, Anna, please, and do not let this slip away from ALL of us!.. so,no more on new, different taxation, that’ll come much later!
As Gene Baldassari points out I cannot remember a time in this entire campaign that Anna Little was not for the FairTax. I can attest to her understanding of the FairTax because as State Director of FairTax NJ I was part of the team that provided training for her – a training that was hardly necessary because of the excellent understanding she already had from her own study.
Incumbent politicians really have a good thing going for themselves when they convince people that they don’t pay any federal income taxes now. There are significant embedded taxes like the corporate income tax & the employers’ share of social security & Medicare taxes that are passed along & paid for by any one purchasing groceries, medicine, & every other retail item. Also the cost of compliance with the tax code is passed along to consumers today. Two examples – GE’s income tax return in 2009 was 24,000 electronic pages & Pfizer had a legal budget of $500,000,000 split between compliance costs & litigation. People – all of us – pay these regressive tax costs as well as the payroll taxes that are eliminated by enactment of the FairTax.
Contrast Anna’s excellent record of fiscal responsibility with 22 year incumbent Pallone’s. The National Taxpayers Union grades Pallone “F” with a lowly 7% favorable rating.
The FairTax is the biggest transfer of power from the politicians to the people since the founding of this country & that is one of the reasons Anna Little is a FairTax supporter.
The debate in this thread is making my point. We’re learning a lot about the fair tax, the pros and cons. We’ve also learned, from Little supporters, that there is far from a consensus on the issue.
Most of us here can agree that we need smaller government, less spending and less taxes. How we get there will be decided in the congressional sausage factory and it won’t be pretty.
The point is to elect people who believe in smaller government, less spending and lower taxes. Frank Pallone in not one of those people.
Frank and the APP now have Anna on tape advocating what we can see right here in this thread is a complex issue. Too complex to resolve in 3 weeks on the campaign trail.
If the next three weeks is about the fair tax, Pallone gets reelected. That’s my point.
Art, it is not that complicated. Pallone will not get re-elected on the strength of trying to spin this one issue, and to be candid as a voter I find the suggestion to the contrary to be bizarre, fantastic, and patronizing. If the electorate is that fickle and manipulable, then Anna has no chance to win at all — because Pallone can manufacture any number of fake scare stories to accomplish the same effect.
Either you put your trust in the people and their ability to use common sense to see through that kind of garbage, or you think that we’re all too stupid and ignorant and easily manipulated. As I said, I’m sick and tired of politicians who insult my intelligence by treating me in the latter manner. That’s the reason why I’m supporting Anna Little in the first place. I daresay that the same is true of most other voters who are coming out of the woodwork to join her ‘army.’ Is it your idea to throw under the bus precisely the people who got her where she is in the first place?
We can debate about whether the Fair or Flat tax would be a better alternative to the Income tax. I personally would favor the Flat Tax for a variety of reasons, but that’s not the point. I would JUMP at the chance to replace the INCOME tax with EITHER, and I wouldn’t bother to quibble with anyone who offered me that alternative. Anyone who would is not on my side of the political spectrum.
You underestimate the character of the American people who are rising up against statism in this election. Sorry, but I’m not buying, and I’ll have none of it.
the electorate is that fickle and manipulable…we’re all too stupid and ignorant and easily manipulated.
… well said, isn’t that what got Obama elected?
James: Precisely. If we play the leftists’ game by their rules, they will win. The only way to beat them is to play our game and not theirs.
But the way, I agree completely that the important focus should be on cutting spending rather than tax reform. The country doesn’t have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem.
Tony – As state director of FairTax NJ please be assured that I am a spending guy & not a tax guy. The transparency of the FairTax is the bridge to getting spending under control if the republic is to survive. When people clearly see how much their personal tax contribution is to the federal government’s activities I am counting on them sending a message through the ballot box to elect people who will stand for fiscal responsibility that is long overdue. I don’t know of another way other than the FairTax to peacefully do this.
Tony, you’re wrong. The way for Little to win this election is to hope that the urban poor, who always vote democrat, stay the hell home. I know where she has stood on this issue; it’s one of the two main reasons I opposed Anna in the primary, quite frankly. But she was never caught on video stating it. Video of Little stating that she will raise taxes 23% can be used as motivation to get the urban poor to the polls.
Art is dead-on, 100%, on this issue.
Well, Joe, thanks for confirming my point. You advise political strategy on the basis of contempt for the electorate (let’s “hope the urban poor stay home”). I demand political strategy based on respect for the electorate, and will no longer support politicians who take any other approach. And I’m old enough to know that what you advise has been the dominant one taken by the Republican party for decades. Look where that’s gotten us.
That is why I say that the Tea Partiers are beginning to understand that it is not just the Democrats, but the Republican establishment as well, that is the enemy of America’s future. Until we demand an end to the timid pragmatism that has kept the Republicans the party of “Democrat Lite,” NOTHING fundamental will change. The way you cower in fear of what the “urban poor” (your words) will do if you get too bold just makes my point in spades. It’s the same thinking that was implicit in Karl Rove’s suicidal backstabbing of Christine O’Donnell. And it’s got to stop, because this nation no longer has the time left to be able to afford to indulge it.
So let me be clear, speaking as a lifelong Independent who re-registered Republican for the first time this year — and for the express purpose of helping to put Anna Little on the ballot instead of Diane Gooch. The price you set for winning is the sacrifice of moral courage, and it is too high. I would rather see Pallone win again than support a Republican candidate that is still afraid to display the courage to do the right thing, at a time when our nation is about to be flushed down the toilet. Without a new crop of politicians in Washington with precisely the kind of boldness that you’re afraid of seeing her display, that’s just what is going to happen. And if it does, then I’d rather see the Dems at the helm and taking the blame for it.
Doug, thanks — I’m familiar with the program and have had that discussion with FairTax advocates before. For the record I part company on the idea of it serving as a bridge to spending reform. The latter is not complicated, but it does require fortitude. What you have to do is accept the fact that 75% of federal spending is illegitimate, and set up plans to start phasing it out. That’s it. Spending reform doesn’t require tax reform, and it’s by far the more important and immediate issue.
I should stress that my main problem with Art and Joe’s advice has less to do with the Fair Tax, and more to do with the idea of advising Anna to hedge her positions out of fear that anything “too radical” can be “demagogued.” As I said, nothing fundamental in politics is going to change until we get over that fear.
The fair tax has a build in prebate. This will go to everyone and offset the tax on the basics. Those below the poverty line will not pay anything for the basics.
Also, it you take out all the other taxes. Income, Payroll, Corporate, etc. The prices on items will go down since all those other taxes are built into the price. There may not be any increase from the consumer perspective, prices may actually go down since the dollars are only taxes once.
You need to read more about the fair tax before you comment on it. Lets try to keep this conversation real and on the facts about the fair tax. I don’t mind debating the facts.
Tony, yeah, whatever. No contempt, just a firm grasp on reality. People who don’t pay taxes are not going to learn about the fiar tax in 3 weeks and will not vote for a candidate that supports it.
And if there is a prebate, then it’s really not a fair tax where everyone pays their fair share, is it?
Monmouth Republican, while obviously a fair tax supporter, also makes my point.
There is not enough time or money in this election to make it about the fair tax. Too much education has to occur.
Anna has a great line about the tax code. She says it has more words in it than the Holy Bible. All she should say is that the tax code needs to be reformed, because it has more words in it than the Holy Bible.