Neal Boortz

“Consider this: Every day in America more people get their evening news from Entertainment Tonight, an insipid syndicated television show covering celebrity news, than from CBS, NBC, and ABC combined.”

“Let me tell you something. You win life's lottery when you're born--especially if you're born in the United States, hands down the best place in the world to begin and live your life. You're an American, the envy of people around the globe. From that point on everything else is gravy--and it's all up to you.”

“Gun buyback programs have to rank at the top of the list of mindless feel-good attempts to address a serious problem in the history of our republic. I once had a statistician from Georgia Tech study these much-hyped programs to determine their effectiveness in reducing murders committed with handguns. To reach a statistical certainty of saving one human life, he found, you would have to buy back about 65,000 handguns. That means that Atlanta's gun buyback programs have not yet saved a single human life. And yet you'll find no shortage of antigun nuts arguing that a life is saved for virtually every gun turned in.”

“All of this causes me to get a bit antsy before any major election.Why? Because the modern American election is an open invitation for people who haven't had a working relationship with a clue since their first driver's test to step up and participate in a decision-making process that will have profound implications for my life and the life of my family long after I've been tucked in for the eternal, celestial dirt nap.Frankly, it scares me to death.”

“Let's just make this easy. I'm in favor of a Constitutional amendment that would read something like this:'Neither the federal government, nor any state or local government shall make any activity a crime unless said activity violates another person's right to life, liberty, or property, either through force or fraud.'Could you live with that? Could you live with the thought that anyone in your community could do pretty much what they wish, so long as it doesn't interfere with anyone else? Now there's a definition of freedom--and it's something I suspect most of you just couldn't go along with.”

“We Americans seem to derive a great deal of pleasure out of punishing those who fail to measure up to our standards of morality and conduct--regardless of whether or not their conduct has any affect on our personal rights to life, liberty, and property.”

“In the 1990s, the Rand Corporation conducted a study on cocaine use in the United States and various control strategies to reduce that usage...The Rand researchers found that Option 4--the treatment option-- was seven times as cost-effective as Option 3, the domestic enforcement option.”

“When I introduce myself as a card-carrying Libertarian, more often than not I get the same old response: 'Oh, you're the people who want to legalize drugs.'Well, not exactly. We're the people who understand that American taxpayers are paying absurd amounts of money to accomplish goals that could be met at a fraction of the cost. We're the people who think it's ridiculous that the majority of the growth in our prison populations in this country is due to slamming people in jail just because they were caught using drugs. We're the ones who understand that so much of the crime on the streets of our country is drug-related--crime that would largely disappear if the massive profits brought on by drug criminalization were eliminated. We're the party that understands that you can reduce drug usage more efficiently, and at a lower cost, through treatment than through law enforcement.”

“Right now the top 50 percent of taxpayers pay almost 96 percent of the taxes. The top income earners--the evil top 1 percent--earn about 16.5 percent of the income and pay almost 33.7 percent of the income taxes. This is what Democrats call "not paying your fair share.”

“During most election seasons, one group of researchers or another will generate a voter questionnaire highlighting planks from the Republican, Democrat, and Libertarian election platforms. Using excerpts from the party platforms, these pamphlets propose to present three alternative ways to address specific issues--without identifying which plank comes from which party. The people taking the survey merely have to choose the positions that most clearly mirror their own.Interestingly enough, the majority of those taking this blind test tend to favor positions taken from the Libertarian platform over those from the Democrats or Republicans.”

“Isn't a governor something you put on a state to keep it from moving ahead very fast?”

“One word: power.The more politicians can control your access to your own wealth and earnings, the more powerful they are. The more politicians can affect businesses and important business decisions with tax policy, the more powerful they are. The more they can adversely affect the financial picture of one segment of our economy for the benefit of another, the more powerful they are. The more politicians can pander to the petty fears and jealousies of people by punishing high achievers for their efforts, the more powerful they are.”

“A Tax Foundation study for 2002 has found that taxpayers with adjusted gross incomes under $20,000 incur a compliance cost of 4.53 percent of income compared to only 0.29 percent for taxpayers with adjusted gross incomes over $200,000.”

“History lesson, folks: The tax system we have today—the one we've come to know and love—began ninety-four years ago as a (drum roll, please) flat tax! The monstrosity you see today is a flat tax on income after nearly a century of very imperfect evolution. At first, only a very small percentage of Americans were asked to pay income tax. In fact, that’s how they sold it to us—as a tax on the rich! Well, that all changed with World War II. The cost of the war effort led to an expansion of those who paid federal income taxes—and we were off to the races. The tax code was flattened again, if you will, in 1986. Since that time it has been amended 16,000 times. We now have more than 67,000 pages of statutes and regulations—which helps explain why, last year, nearly two-thirds of all tax filers had to seek professional help with their tax return.”

“The FairTax takes current individual taxpayers out of the tax collection and payment business altogether. Just how many people would that be? Try 165 million. That’s 165 million people who at present need to be watched, and perhaps audited, by the IRS to ensure compliance. With the FairTax, we’ll have about 25 million businesses to watch instead of 165 million taxpayers… Further, the states and the feds—at least in the forty-five states that have sales taxes—will be looking at the same companies.”

“[W]hen you look at who’ll be collecting this tax, the chances of drumming up a conspiracy suddenly look even worse. In America, .03 percent of all of America’s companies—688 companies, to be exact—sell 48.5 percent of all of the merchandise. Those companies aren't going to help you cheat; there’s simply too much at stake. Date also show that 3.6 percent of all of America’s companies—92,334 firms—collectively make 85.7 percent of all sales… When it comes to the services sector, the fact is that 1.2 percent of all businesses make approximately 80 percent of the sales in the services sector. They have too much to lose to risk helping you cheat. Even if the FairTax were paid only by these few companies, we would still have a better collection rate than the IRS currently has with the income tax.”

“Let’s look at the state of tax cheating under the current system. In 2001, the last year for which information is available, the IRS reports that it collected $345 billion less than it was owed—or about 16 percent of all that was owed, a figure known as “the tax gap”.”

“[O]ne macroeconomic study of the FairTax—a study that assumed that the employer’s share of the payroll tax is the only tax savings that will be used to lower prices—estimated that prices would rise by 24.8 percent but wages would increase by 27.4 percent, more than compensating for the increase in prices. By these calculations, disposable income is expected to increase by 1.7 percent.”

“Because consumption comes from three sources: income, savings, and borrowings. Stating the obvious, income comes only from income. Our point? FairTax opponents will tell you that the consumption base, the base for national sales tax, isn’t stable and can’t be trusted—but in reality it’s the income tax base that’s unstable and can’t be trusted. The consumption base is much more predictable.”

“[T]he last major effort to simplify the income tax system was passed in 1986; succeeding Congresses have amended it sixteen thousand times in the last twenty years.”

“The fact that FairTax principles haven’t already been passed into law is an indication of failure at every level of politics in every party. It’s also an indication of the fear most politicians feel at the thought of a tax system without all those little hiding places they love to manipulate for their own benefit.”

“No longer would other nations, other economies, be taking business and jobs away from the U.S. economy by enacting their own valuable tax reform and simplification measures. As these nations have enjoyed steady gains, we have distracted ourselves with a cacophony of politicians, from both sides of the aisle, yammering about their favorite ideas for using our federal tax code to punish people they don’t like while rewarding people and industries they do.”

“The Social Security system is a $75 trillion problem. Again, just to give you a sense of scale: Let’s say you started a business the day Jesus Christ was born. Let’s say you weren’t exactly a good businessman, and your business lost a million dollars every day—right through yesterday. How much longer would it take before your losses added up to $1 trillion? About 718 more years should do it, give or take a few months. And that’s just one trillion. Multiply that by seventy-five, and you have the size of the Social Security problem. That’s the amount it would take to fully fund Social Security for all current workers and retirees. To realize the magnitude of the problem we’re facing, consider the fact that the total of all wealth in America is about $60 trillion. We could confiscate every item of value from every American household, including cash and investments, and apply the value to the problem—and still not have enough money to fund Social Security fully.”

“Let’s pause a moment to think about how much $1 trillion really is. Such large-scale economic matters are often discussed in terms of trillions, but how many people really understand how much a trillion is?Let’s say you've been told you have to wait for something very special for one million seconds. How long would your wait be? A little more than eleven and a half days. But what if you had to wait for one billion seconds? Well, you’d be waiting a little longer: try almost thirty-two years.And for one trillion seconds? We’ll round it off to 31,700 years.”

“The underground economy. Our present complex tax code allows—even encourages—people to go “under the radar.” How bad is this problem? Well, estimates are that the underground economy—those dealing in illegal or illicit behavior such as drugs or other off-the-books labor—amounts to between $1.5 trillion and $3 trillion per year.”

“The joint committee invited economists of many economic stripes to model what would happen if America switched from the current code to a unified income tax or a consumption tax. Every economist who modeled reported that the consumption tax would increase long-term economic growth.”

“When Bill Archer (R-Tex.) was chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, he routinely quoted an informal survey of five hundred international companies located in Europe and Japan. These companies were asked, “What would you do in your long-term planning if the United States eliminated all taxes on capital and labor and taxed only personal consumption?” Eighty percent—that’s four hundred out of five hundred companies—said they would build their next plant in America. The remaining 20 percent—the other hundred companies—said they would relocate their business to America altogether.”

“[A] Harvard University study [showed] that, on average, about 22 percent of what you pay for any consumer item or service represents the embedded costs in that item—that is, the embedded costs of our current tax system. Taxes, like some other similarly offensive substances, roll downhill, and you the consumer are standing at the bottom.”

“Just what do we tax under our current system? Work, that’s what. Hard work and productivity. The harder you work, the more you achieve. The more you achieve, the more you’re taxed. To make matters worse, under our “progressive” income tax system, the harder you work, the more severe the punishment actually is!”

“Whenever passion prevails over reason, truth becomes a casualty.”

“It is interesting to note that under our original Constitution the highest office for which citizens could vote was their member of the House of Representatives. Senators were chosen by the legislatures of the several states, and the president was selected by an electoral college. Our founding fathers designed a government in which the true power rests in the House, a body the electorate can change completely every two years. It is thus quite sad that so many Americans concentrate so heavily on our quadrennial presidential beauty contest.”

“Businesses and other organizations spend more than six billion hours each year complying with the federal tax code. Estimated compliance costs conservatively top $225 billion annually—costs that are ultimately embedded in retail prices paid by consumers.”