Tax Day, April 15^th is a great opportunity to spread the word to people whose minds are firmly focused on the unpleasantness of filing income taxes.  And this year there is the additional opportunity of a national grassroots Tea Party movement.  Roanoke Area FairTax is combining both at Roanoke’s main Post Office on Rutherford Ave. across from the Civic Center.

As we have done before, RAFT will have a table on public property in front of the Post Office.  Volunteers will distribute information to people as they arrive to mail their tax returns, directing them to the table to receive further information, to sign up to become one of us, and to talk to us about the FairTax.  We’ll also give them tea bags labeled with the contact numbers of Senators and Congressman.  We ask them to contact these legislators and urge them to support the FairTax.

In addition, we encourage you to join us on the sidewalk to express your support.  This will be your opportunity to be creative.  Although we will have FairTax signs and a banner, individual expression is even better.  Bring signs and posters to tell onlookers, and hopefully the media, what you feel.  If you want examples of slogans and one-liners, go to http://lukeamerica2020.wordpress.com/2009/04/03/101-tea-party-sign-slogans/.

We will be at the P.O. from 3 pm until closing (around 8 pm).  Each of you is urged to participate for at least part of the time to make the most of this unique double opportunity to get the FairTax story out to a receptive public.  I suggest you park at the nearby Civic Center parking area, as the Post Office will allow only short time customer parking.

Ours is not the only Tea Party (see www.RoanokeAreaFairTax.com/TeaParty for the complete list), but it is the only one featuring strong FairTax emphasis, lots of receptive taxpayers, relatively high vehicle traffic, and a downtown setting.

If you would like to commit to being there, please let me know at RAFT@cox.net.  That would help a lot in planning.  Come on down and Spread the word!

Across this country there is a growing movement to express the will of the people, both negatively and positively.  These public gatherings are being called “Tea Parties” after the well-known Boston Tea Party in protest against “taxation without representation.”  RAFT intends to participate in this movement but in a positive way by promoting the principles of the FairTax.  We have set aside a page on this website to provide news about our plans and those of other groups throughout the country.

We have a couple of Tea Party activities already scheduled and invite your participation in them, as well as your suggestions for expanding them or arranging new ones.

• On Thursday, April 2, Roanoke Area FairTax will have a special presentation, Save the Economy: The FairTax, at 6:45 pm at WDBJ7’s Community Room, 2807 Hershberger Rd., Roanoke. You will hear that what the FairTax will do is just what the economy needs and perhaps could have prevented the problem in the first place. The program takes about 35 minutes and will be followed by questions and discussion from the audience. This is a good time to get informed and to see how your needs and the FairTax principles can merge. Volunteers are needed to help run this meeting and to take care of our information and donation table!  Please let me know at RAFT@cox.net.

At the end of this presentation, we will solicit ideas from the audience about additional Tea Party events.   Come and add your voice to the call for action on the FairTax as a potential solution to our economic problems.  The time is ripe!

• On Tax Day, April 15^th, RAFT will again be at the main Post Office, at 419 Rutherford Ave., Roanoke, to bring information about the FairTax to the late filers.  We’ll be there from 3 PM until the Post Office closes at about 8 PM.  In addition to our usual activities, we are encouraging supporters to come out in large numbers to walk around with FairTax signs and generally enhance our presence.  Plans for this are still being developed, including the possibility of media coverage, and more information will come soon.

Volunteers for Tax Day are needed!  Plan to come and make your feelings known about the current economic situation.  Please let me know at RAFT@cox.net.

In addition to the activity in Roanoke, we encourage and will support appearances by any of you at your local Post Office.  Just let me know at RAFT@cox.net.

With the economy in such bad shape and with huge expenditures in an attempt to fix it, the principles of the FairTax stand as ways to fix it and, quite possibly, to prevent future occurrences.  Many citizens are angry at what they fear will be taken from them to cover the bad decisions of others.  They are expressing themselves in public gatherings called “Tea Parties,” reminiscent of the taxation-without-representation Boston Tea Party in 1773.

RAFT wants to bring a positive message to these expressions of anger and concern: the promise of the FairTax.  As such, we will be handing out up to 2000 Shamrock-green fliers asking people to go to our special website page, www.RoanokeAreaFairTax.com/TeaParty, that is being constructed.  There we will have information about events, meetings, and information.

I am looking for volunteers who would enjoy a good parade and help pass our fliers to spectators.  The parade begins at 11:00 and runs for about two hours after which there will be a Celtic Festival at Williamson Rd. and Church St.  RAFT will have “headquarters,” as usual, in the parking lot at the corner of Jefferson St. and Campbell Ave. starting at 9:00.  Come to our “booth,” meet your fellow supporters, grab some fliers, and get out into the crowd.  All you have to do is hand them out: no explanations, no signatures.

The more of us there are, the easier the job will be.  Come and, literally, Spread the word!

RAFT thinks the ad unfairly depicts what the FairTax is and what Goode believes. On October 30^th RAFT demanded that the Perriello campaign pull the ad. We have still not heard from them. In addition, RAFT alerted Roanoke area TV, radio, and print media of our demand. None of them picked up the story.

Lying and distorting is, unfortunately, an unchallenged part of American politics. In this case, it means that supporters of the FairTax will have to re-educate those who accepted the Perriello version of how it works. As stated in earlier posts, RAFT is non-partisan and acts only to preserve honesty in how the FairTax is presented.

I urge you to write to the Perriello campaign to express your feelings about the ad at info@perrielloforcongress.com.

Here are the two excerpts that have been made available online.

By Stew Rusby on FairTaxGroups.com

A new government program would pay you $188.00 per month; for you and your wife it would be $376.00 per month. If you have 3 children it jumps to $571.00 a month and if your Mother-in-Law (or 4th child) lives with you it goes to $636.00 per month raising your income by $7,600 per year.

It is no gimmick, I am not asking you for any money to reveal this secret to you and it is a legal program with broad support. The program was the result of some of the “We the People??? in our constitution being fed up with the government handling of our finances so this group of “We the People??? raised over a million dollars and hired some of our nations finest accountants and economists and asked them to develop a program that would help everyone, help lower income families the most, help our economy, renew our leadership in innovation, save our Social Security program and stabilize low interest rates.

The good and generous group that donated the money for this project did us a big favor and the results were amazing. They have developed a plan to do all of the above. Plus, it will bring off shore investment back to our shores.

Now, I just told you about a small part of the program. As you can see above everyone will get from about $4,000 a year to about $8,000 a year increase in income. But there is even more. Let’s say you and your wife earn about $50,000 per year. In this program you could receive another $10,000 per year as a result of the changes this program will bring.

So far I have shown you above how you can increase your total annual income by almost $20,000 and I have told you it is very easy to obtain. So if you would like a $20,000 a year raise you only have to do one thing. It is very easy. You just have to “ ask for the program???. You don’t have to pay any fees or take a course or commit to hours of extra work or listen to tapes or hold parties where you sell things or pester your friends to buy a product. Nope. You just have to “ask for the program???.

I am going to give you a web site where you can go and read about this great wealth you can receive and it will tell you how you can request the program. Go to this free site and you do not have to buy anything, just read what they say. The site is www.fairtax.org

OK, you are curious and you want some details. Here is a quick summary.

The accountants and economists and attorneys who worked on this studied our current tax system. They discovered that it could be reorganized and it would save the government bundles of cash plus it could raise enough money for the government to operate. One of the tricky secrets they discovered is that business and corporations do not pay taxes. Well, they send the money in but it is money you pay them for their taxes so you pay it they do not. Let’s say you buy a new cell phone for $100.00. That cell phone should sell for about $78.00 but all the companies that make that phone pay taxes of about $22.00 so they sell their $78.00 phone for $100 and you pay the taxes.

These numbers and dollars gurus figured out if they eliminated the IRS the cell phones and everything else you buy would drop in price through competition. The companies are happy, they make as much because they are not being taxed. Now, the government tells everybody who is selling things to include $23.00 in consumption or sales taxes and send it to the government. Most retail people are already collecting sales taxes so this is just one more check for them to send.

Do you see the magic these numbers gurus have discovered? You are paying almost the same price for new products, you do not pay any income taxes so you get your whole pay check (see the $10,000 above)and at the beginning of each month Washington is going to send you the sales tax you will pay for your basic necessities (see the $188 to $700 plus above). If you are a little tight go to a garage sale and buy used items, the tax only applies to new items and because of the prebate it only applies to non-essential items..

Tens of thousands of us have already signed a petition asking for the program. If you want it you have to “just ask for it??? by signing the petition also. There are at least 3 candidates for president who support this program. There are about 65 congressional members who have pledged to co-sign the bill. It is going to happen but it depends on you as to how fast it is adopted.

There is probably an introductory program being offered in your community, maybe at the local library. There are books you can read and loads of information at the web site.

Please join me now, I want to help start spending or saving our new increased income.

The fine print:
There are some people who do not want this program and they will resist until “We the People??? show we are strongly in favor of this program. The people who do not want it are some in congress who want the power of unlimited taxation; often they cloud the issue by offering partial tax exemptions for selected items which gives them the power to accept special lobbying perks and bonuses like trips and campaign finance advantages. The lobbyists and many attorneys are afraid of losing their jobs. We feel there is lots of work available for them showing everyone how to invest their new income and putting their efforts for expansion. I questioned how this program could finance the government when taxes from individuals plus corporations would be eliminated. At the web site I found studies showing how the expansion of the consumption tax without exemptions will more than fund our needs. Many types of consumers who avoid paying taxes will be supporting us and our new expansion will help. Read at the web site or one of the books about the program. Then “just ask for it???.