Saturday, July 26, 2008

Marathon Training

My friend Matt and I are training to row a marathon and just completed week 1. Only 15 more weeks till race day. WoOoOoOo! I did about 23 miles of running this week and our plan has us getting up to rowing(x1)/running(x1)/cycling(x4) a total of 51 miles in our peak milage week. I'm very glad there's a plan to get from here to there.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Fair Tax

I just finished reading The Fair Tax Book today. I had heard about the fair tax before and have visited the website but I still learned a lot.

For those that don't know, the Fair Tax is a law in congress, HR 25 and S 1025, that aims to eliminate all personal income, estate, FICA, medicare and corporate taxes, abolish the IRS and replace them with an inclusive national sales tax of 23%. This means that if you buy a $100 item, the retailer keeps $77 and sends $23 upstream to the federal government. Because the taxes and cost of compliance with federal tax laws are already embedded in the cost of every item you buy (estimated to be around 23%) prices for the consumer are expected to remain the same or slightly decrease. Imagine the ability to take home all of your pay every two weeks and only pay tax when you choose to spend it.

Some of you may be wondering about those with little to no income, but not to worry the plan takes care of that by "prebating" every head of household in the US with the amount of sales tax on a twelfth of the inflation adjusted poverty level for the size of their family. This means that the poor's tax burden is removed entirely and still receive goods and services from the federal government.

I'm on board, but a ground swell of support is required to convince congress that this is a desired course of action. I encourage you to investigate the plan and then contact your friendly neighborhood congress critter with your opinion.

I consider this to be compatible with the Change Congress movement as the simplification of the tax law to a point where there are no loop holes or exceptions for anyone will lead to a congress more beholden to their constituents.