PUT AN ACTIVIST IN CONGRESS
VOTE FOR SEAN SHEPARD ON MARCH 11
If you like what Hoosiers For Fair Taxation stands for and what we do, then send this endorsement for Sean Shepard to all your friends and encourage them to go out to vote on March 11 for Sean as your new congressperson to take the late Julia Carson's seat.
As activists, we follow politics on an hour by hour basis. Sometimes we even drive what happens. In other words, we have a clue.
Sean Shepard is your best choice for Congress. If you were involved in the property tax and city council rallies last summer, you would know that Sean Shepard led these rallies beside Melyssa, Andy Horning and Dave Bond of StopIndiana.com. Here's one of Indiana Tea Party videos he made for us. If you want to see more go here to see that Sean is one of our key activists.
Many of you don't know, but when the property tax crisis first hit in July 2007, Sean spent days crunching numbers of various economic plans and studying policy to see if a model of the Fair Tax would be realistic for Indiana.
Sean Shepard is one of Indiana's Fair Tax directors and will co-sponsor HR25, the Fair Tax Act. The Fair Tax, an exhaustively researched economic plan that will dramatically improve our nation's economy for the better by eliminating all tax except a consumption tax. Adopting the Fair Tax will stimulate America's economy while elminating the oppressive IRS. Surveys show that most Americans favor the Fair Tax over our dysfunctional tax system, yet our politicians refuse to let go of the status quo. That's because the status quo directly benefits politicians and their party before you, the taxpayer.
You might ask yourself why you should vote for the Libertarian. I would ask, why not see what he can do for us between now and the end of the year? What do you have to lose? It's not like the 7th district had representation since September 2007 anyway.
Sean would be the first Libertarian in Congress. That means there will be plenty of media for conservative Libertarian ideas a.k.a. Goldwater republican ideas and the importance of Rule of Law. How can that be bad for America or Indiana?
Sean has a proven record of working as an activist (without pay) for freedom. He's already given countless hours of his life to help improve his city and state for no other reason than he cares. If he already does this work for us for free, imagine what he can accomplish when he holds real power as a Congressman to help make positive change for Indiana and America?
Sean's competition is getting the media attention for now. Jon Elrod, the republican, is busy raising 100's of thousands of dollars for the republican power brokers. Jon is courting the gay community for money and publicly backs property tax repeal and gay rights. He's good looking, a lawyer, and is very likeable. He seems to be the perfect mix of fiscal conservative and social liberal.
Yet there is more to Elrod than good looks and gay friendly politics. Jon Elrod has not yet finished his term as Indiana State Representative. He was elected to fulfill that role, not abandon us the moment something shinier comes along.
Elrod is now comfy and cozy with the same bunch of elite republicans that turned their backs on Greg Ballard during our mayoral election. One of the first things these power brokers told young Jon Elrod is that he had to get busy and raise $300,000 for the republican party. And that's what he's busy doing right now. He doesn't talk about representing you in the state house. He does mention that he's never lost an election. What do you think? Are the citizens in Elrod's district taking a back seat to Elrod's fundraising and campaigning for Congress?
Have you heard Elrod on the news championing property tax repeal in the Indiana State House? Why isn't he working day and night lobbying other legislators for us on this very hot issue? The answer is that Elrod is busy raising $100's of thousands for his party and campaigning for a more high profile seat and a bigger salary.
Meanwhile Sean Shepard worked for you for free and sacrificed time from his family and business to do it for you.
Let's take a look at Andre Carson, Julia Carson's anointed grandson who was recently endorsed by Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam. That statement alone should scare you from supporting Carson, but there is more.
Andre took a position on the city council to replace the seat vacated by Patrice Abdullah last fall. Andre has barely uttered a word since he took the city council seat. Within days of his appointment to city council, he accepted a lucrative marketing position with Cripe Architects in spite of the fact that he has no marketing or architectural experience. Guess what Cripe Architects does to pay Carson his lucrative salary? Why they do a whole lot of municipal contracts, of course.
Meanwhile Sean Shepard runs his own tech business that employs Hoosiers with good jobs, raises his children with his wife, pays his taxes plus pays to send his children to a private christian school, and still finds time to serve you by leading tax rallies, protests and educational forums. What are Elrod and Carson doing for you?
Sean Shepard never asked you for anything, but instead he gave you something. He gave you representation for property tax repeal and reform.
Sean Shepard stood up to government tax oppression for you.
Now he asks you for nothing but your vote on March 11 and a chance to show you what he can do for you in Congress between now and the end of the year.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Sean Shepard, 7th District Special Election Congressional Candidate
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9 comments:
What is Sean's position on anti-libertarian hate crime legislation?
Really good material! It is easy to sneer at Libertarians but they are not all that bad. They are the conscience of the Republican Party-doing what the mice fearing won't.
I'm a friend of Sean's, and while I don't remember ever specifically discussing hate crime legislation with him, I imagine his view isn't far from mine. (The following are my ramblings, not Sean's, and do not necessarily correspond with his.)
Crime is crime, and to punish one instance of crime differently than another based on the court's collective perception of the mind of the perpetrator is a slippery slope toward thought crimes.
Don't get me wrong, racially (or sexist, or heteroist) motivated crime is heinous in its pointlessness and effects us on an emotional level more than anything else.
But the judicial system shouldn't be emotional, that's what 14th amendment guarantees. When you punish crimes between distinct groups more severely than crimes within groups, you begin to trivialize the latter.
I risk answering this at 3:40 AM and badly in need of some sleep, and I realize my answer may not endear me to some; but:
For starters, and especially at the Federal level, I believe the government should be out of the marriage business. Let marriage be something people do in the eyes of their God and let things relating to government be handled via contract law. This way, no special benefits ensue to anyone for being (or not being) married. This is a more complicated approach to take because of some "unwinding" that would need to be done were marriage is codified, but who really needs the government to sanction who people sleep with or choose to spend their life with.
I am tired of significant economic, tax and foreign policy reform issues losing time to something that should be none of the government's business to begin with.
However, I also believe we need to be vigilant about exchanging our individual rights for "group rights". We each have rights and anyone violating them by an act of violence, aggression or intimidation is guilty of a crime that is already on the books.
When we begin to enter into the realm of "hate crime", again more of a state issue than a Federal issue (but I will refuse to use that to dodge the question) we start making up new crimes in order to penalize people for their thoughts or motives prior to committing some action. This is something that should be taken into consideration as part of the sentencing, and perhaps some review or greater flexibility in sentencing guidelines is worth review.
I agree very much with John's comment that we start talking in the realm "thought crime" (1984 much?) and we potentially put dampers on what dialogue people might have (productive or otherwise) for fear of it later being used against them to suggest "hate" as a motive.
When we begin to think of ourselves as members of a group with special benefits or protections instead of as individuals with rights equal with all others, we make ourselves easy to manipulate by politicians seeking to buy favor. We also unwind the very "equal protection" that everyone is really trying to accomplish (I hope).
I am always open to further discussion on this or any other topic.
In response to the original post regarding the Fair Tax...
Sean and I have had previous brief online discussions on the subject.
My position is that the Fair Tax is nothing more than a substitution for the income tax.
Why is that a problem?
To understand the problem you first need to understand the process that started the income tax in the first place. Without going into detail, when the Federal Reserve Act was implemented, every time the US government wanted to spend money, it was required to obtain those funds from the Federal Reserve banks rather than through taxes and tariffs collected by the US Treasury. Meaning that every dollars spent was a dollar owed + interest to repay the loan. The income tax was the solution to paying the interest.
Fast forward to today, and we have a situation where the mainstream media is no longer in control of mainstream thinking. The internet has become a conduit of fact and history that has always been available in archives and within low circulation publications, but has not been readily accessible or easily transmitted to a large audience.
As a result, many more people are awakening to the possibility that the income tax may not meet Constitutional muster. The Fair Tax, if implemented, would be a good pre-emptive strategy for the Federal Reserve to continue to receive it's interest payments while the IRS switches gears before it becomes widely accepted that the income tax is questionable.
In other words, the Fair Tax takes a potentially challengeable tax off the table, and replaces it with a tax that cannot be negatively weighed upon from a Constitutional perspective.
Given the illigitimate nature of the Federal Reserve System (where our national treasury is controlled by private banks, at interest), it's my opinion that the Fair Tax is not a solution. It's more like a technicality that a lawyer finds to allow a criminal to escape prosecution based upon a legal loophole.
Shorebreak said: "In other words, the Fair Tax takes a potentially challengeable tax off the table, and replaces it with a tax that cannot be negatively weighed upon from a Constitutional perspective."
I strongly disagree. There is nothing challengeable about the income tax---the 16th Amendment solved that issue. And there are lots of folks poorer or in jail for challenging that statement.
As for the Fairtax, I believe it is absolutely unconstitutional for the federal government to tax state and local government operations. It's easy to forget that our government consists of two sovereign powers, federal and state, each acting on the same persons, but with different duties and responsibilities. Under the long held doctrine of intergovernmental tax immunity, the Supreme Court has struck down various attempts to violate that doctrine. As Justice Marshall wrote, the power to tax is the power to destroy. In the unlikely event that the Fairtax gets considered by Congress, look for a lot of opposition from the states. It might have been far better to have a plan that doesn't tax governments, with an inclusive rate of 29%, and thereby avoid these difficult issues.
Regarding the excellent comments posted here by Shorebreak and Dutchman:
Individual citizens have failed repeatedly to successfully challenge the legitimacy of the Income Tax and the IRS. There are a few, sparse examples of victory but anytime someone tells me the tax is not legitimate, I think a fair question in response is, "you believe this so strongly then, I assume you do not participate in the 'voluntary compliance'" ??
I agree very much with the concern here, but since the power here is still resting with the government, the transfer to a consumption tax would restore that power to the people giving them the choice (to a large extent) in their contribution to the Treasury. At least until such time as the need for that contribution can be eliminated by reducing government size and spending.
The comment regarding Federal taxation of State and Local government spending was one I'd not heard anyone mention before! I wonder then, if this would also mean that State and Local governments should not be paying their half of the Federal FICA contribution on each workers paycheck?
Good comments by both.
Sean,
Your comment about states paying FICA share to the feds is a good one. But, the conventional wisdom is that those payments are simply on behalf of the employee. An arguable point, but many economists seem to feel that the 7.65% employer share would go to the employee under the Fairtax.
I think there is a vast difference between states paying the FICA share, and the feds taxing the state and local government consumption of all new goods and all new services.
And, although I haven't seen much discussion, HR25 seems to say that the burdened cost of government payrolls will be taxed. This probably raises the payroll tax costs by at least 50%? (Read the definition of wages in HR25.
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