BUT IT CAN BE TURNED AROUND

BUT Only If Everyone Gets Off The
“Entitlement” Wagon

AND INSTEAD,

EVERYONE GETS ON BOARD

THE "EMPOWERMENT" WAGON!

As a Charter Boat Captain and Operator, I have watched our industry and our overall economy come under more and more financial stress.  Poorly thought out government rules and regulations make it difficult for our customers to take even a single fish home for dinner.  Customers who were regulars every season no longer have the money to pay to come and have fun plus take a fish or two home for dinner.  People are worried about being able to afford the basics.  Everyone has pulled in his or her horns.

I am just a simple old fisherman but with all of the political rhetoric flying around, and the inability of the media to provide complete and thorough reporting of the facts in simple terms we can understand and relate to, it is difficult for the average American to understand just what the country faces and what it will take to create a long term fix for our problems.

So what CAN each of us do to push the country to a solid, well thought out solution?  There is a Plan out there that actually exists.  Not vacant words from some politician’s mouth.  They all say “I have a Plan.”  Every time I hear a politician say that, I grab my wallet in response.  They say it but never produce the details and, as we all know, the Devil is in the details.

I’m sitting here waiting for the 30 knot winds to die down jotting down my thoughts as to what it would take to fix the U.S. economy.  Heck, I have just as much right to throw in my two cents as any of the people in Washington who have caused this mess to begin with so here goes.

Let’s list some givens:

• The natural state of our economy is prosperity.  Freedom ensures that.
• We must get the government off our backs, out of our pockets, and out of our way in order to return to prosperity.
• Political uncertainty is killing the economy.  Businesses will not make decisions to invest in expansion if the business has no idea what government is planning for the future!

What are our Economic Guiding Principles?

1.    Production drives the economy, NOT spending.

• We cannot spend our way to prosperity.
• Government spending IS taxation.
• Government spending is similar to someone taking a bucket of water from the deep end of the pool and pouring it back in the shallow end of the pool.  Then they HOPE that the water level in the whole pool will CHANGE.

2.    Risk taking drives growth.

• Business formation and job creation are dependent on business owners taking risks regardless of what kind of business is involved.
• Investors who fund those business owners likewise take risks.  Even parents and friends who help someone start a small business are taking risks.  Their investment is subject to loss, diminution, and, only possibly, a profitable return.

3.  Measurements must be dependable.

• A dollar must always be a dollar just as an hour must always have 60 minutes.
• Sound money is crucial for prosperity

We Must Unite Not Divide!

• When one political party seeks to spend its way as a solution for every problem to the point that the other party must focus on cutting, we must unite around the need for economic growth.
• Unite ALL taxpayers.  Don’t divide them income “Income” taxpayers versus “Payroll” taxpayers.
• Unite those seeking to eliminate tax deductions with those seeking lower rates.
• As a first step, unite the “Flat-Taxers” with the “Fair Taxers.”

Realize that Economic Growth IS The Key!

• This is the worst recovery since the Great Depression.
• If the President’s goal was to tie for last place with the previous worst recovery, he failed by 6 million jobs.
• If we were enjoying a typical recovery, 13 million, that’s 13,000,000 more Americans would be employed today.
• The Congressional Super Committee must deliver a robust growth solution.
• America can’t wait until 2012.  We need growth NOW!

Plans seem to work well in Phases so here’s Phase One:

• Current circumstances call for bolder action.
• The Phase One Enhanced Plan incorporates the features of Phase One and gets us a step closer to Phase Two.
• I call on the Congressional Super Committee to pass Phase One Enhanced Plan along with their spending cut package.
• The Phase One Enhances Plan unites Flat Tax supporters with Fair Tax supporters.
• Phase One ENDS the 7.65% payroll tax on employees AND employers and ENDS the 15.3% payroll tax on business owners.
• Phase One achieves the broadest possible tax base along with the lowest possible flat rate of less than 10%.
• Phase One ends the payroll tax completely – a permanent holiday!
• Phase One ELIMINATES the Internal Revenue Service and repeals the 16th Amendment to the Constitution.
• Phase One eliminates the Capital Gains Tax.
• Phase One eliminates the Death Tax.
• Phase One eliminates the double taxation of dividends.
• Phase One taxes business income at the same flat rate individuals pay on their income.

o   Business would be permitted to deduct from gross income all investments made in the business, all purchases made from other businesses, and all dividends paid to owners of the business.

o   Empowerment Zones would offer additional deductions for payrolls paid to those employed within the Zone.

• Phase One would tax Individual at the same flat rate charged to businesses.

o   Individuals would be able to deduct charitable contributions.

o   Empowerment Zones would offer additional deductions for those living and/or working in the Zone.

• Phase One would remove ALL taxes that are currently included in the price of retail products and services and would add a flat sales tax at the same tax rate charged to Individuals and Businesses on retail goods and services with certain exceptions.

o   This gets the Fair Tax off the sidelines and into the game.

o   Any previously owned product would be exempt from this tax.

o   The cost of the product or service to the consumer, even with the flat sales tax added, is less than the original gross price with embedded taxes.  This HELPS low income people. 

Phase Two – The Fair Tax

• Amidst a backdrop of the economic boom created by the Phase One Enhanced Plan, we need a process to educate the American people about the benefits of continuing the next step to the Fair Tax.
• The Fair Tax would ultimately replace Individual and Business Income Taxes.
• It would make it possible to end the Internal Revenue Service as we know it using that we pay to run the mess that our overly complicated tax code has become to lower America’s debt.
• The Fair Tax makes our exported goods and services the most competitively priced for international trade than any other tax system.

Phase One Enhanced Plan – Summary

• Phase One unites all taxpayers so we all pay Income Taxes and no one pays regressive Payroll Taxes.
• Professionals have measured Phase One and found that EVERYONE would pay less to support the federal government than they pay now.  EVERY SINGLE PERSON!
• Phase One provides the least incentive to evade taxes and the fewest opportunities to do so.
• Lifts a $430 billion, that’s $430,000,000,000, dead-weight burden on the economy due to compliance, enforcement, collection, etc. caused by our current Internal Revenue Code.
• Phase One creates a solution that is fair, neutral, transparent, and efficient.
• Phase One ends nearly all deductions and special interest favors.
• Phase One ends all Payroll Taxes.
• Phase One ends the Death Tax.
• Phase One eliminates taxes on Capital Gains and Repatriated Profits.
• Phase One offers the lowest marginal rates on production.
• Phase One permits immediate expensing of business investments.
• Phase One eliminates double taxation of Dividends.
• Phase One creates the environment that will increase capital formation.  Capital invested per worker drives productivity and wage growth.
• Phase One will aid capital availability for small businesses by increasing capital formation.  Small business is the country’s job engine of growth and has been largely shut out from access to capital to start and grow small businesses.
• Phase One features a platform to properly launch structured Empowerment Zones that will revitalize our inner cities putting large numbers of people to work.
• We all know that the Federal Reserve has tripled the money supply since 2008.  The Fed has been printing money as fast as the printing presses can run 24/7, printing money out of thin air that is not backed by any assets at all but used to finance the Obama spending machine.  While true fed reform that restores sound money may have to wait for the election of someone who understands and agrees with my Plan, the best thing we can do now is to pursue policies that increase the DEMAND for dollars to help mitigate the risks associated with the dramatic increase in the money supply.
• Remember that printing money with any backing of that new money with hard assets foists additional inflation on people who use dollars to buy their needed goods and services.  The published inflation rate is around 3% in 2011.  When the printing of the new money is factored in, the inflation rate rises to over 4.5%.  Now you know why the food bill at the supermarket has increased so much.
• Pro-Growth economic policies equal a strong dollar policy.

 The country deserves a change for the better.  While it was promoted during the last presidential election, in 2012 we have the actual opportunity for useful CHANGE.

The “Changes” brought on by the current occupant of the White House, if left alone, may never be overcome.

Our national debt went from $4 Trillion after over 225 years, that’s $4,000,000,000,000, to $15 Trillion, that’s $15,000,000,000,000, since 2008 (Jeez, that's less than 3 years) and the incumbent wants to borrow and spend MORE!  Let’s get serious and SOLVE this economic crisis once and for all.

Let's fix the crisis and actually put people back to work!

Make YOUR voice heard!

Thank you for listening!

(And then ... Let's go fishing!)