Recently, the FairTax proposal has been under attack by numerous critics; the most vicious screeds coming from Bruce Bartlett, who had the audacity to falsely link the proposal to the “church” of Scientology.
FairTax proponent Neal Boortz comes out swinging:
I’ve long had a great deal of respect for Bruce Bartlett. I’ve cited his commentary countless times on my radio show. Lately Bartlett has become perhaps the country’s most vitriolic opponent of the FairTax as evidenced by a series of recent columns in which he makes a weak attempt to tie the FairTax to Scientology. The best that Bartlett can come up with is that years before the FairTax was developed there was a group called Citizens for an Alternative Tax System that developed a plan for a national retail sales tax. The plan was wholly different from the FairTax in that it called for an exclusive, rather than an inclusive sales tax, it did not eliminate payroll taxes, it had no provision to rebate taxes paid on life’s essentials, and it left our corporate tax structure in place. […]
Bartlett’s attacks on the FairTax smack of desperation. Does this plan upset him so much that he has to resort to such a weak attempt at guilt by association? His attacks on the FairTax don’t stop with the Scientology smear. Bartlett completely (intentionally?) mischaracterizes the FairTax prebate, the FairTax provision that insures that no American family would pay the FairTax on the basic necessities of life, by stating in two columns that the government would have to track individual family incomes to implement the prebate plan. A sixth-grader could read the bill or The FairTax Book and understand that the prebate is predicated on the size of the family, not the family income; yet Bartlett continues to insist that income must be tracked! Desparation, carelessness or ignorance?
For the truth on the FairTax, visit here and here. Don’t believe the hype.
P.S.: Just for fun, I created a “shame on…” banner in reply to Bartlett’s recent columns — and Boortz mentioned it on his website.
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