Arizona sound money legislation - Action item!
Arizona SB1439 – Gold and Silver Legal Tender, is moving forward! With the continued grassroots support, the bill was finally heard in the House Rules Committee. It passed on Monday by a vote of 7-2! The bill has since been scheduled for a Minority/Majority Caucus. From there, the bill will have to go through the COW (Committee Of the Whole) before it receives a 3rd read/FULL House vote! Since it already passed the Senate, that means there’s just a few final steps to get this bill to Jan Brewer’s desk.
Time is running out, please act NOW to support Constitutional Tender in the state of Arizona.
ACTION ITEMS for Arizona:
1. Contact the Speaker of the House. Politely request that he schedule SB1439 for the Committee Of the Whole and a 3rd read/FULL House vote. While you’re in touch with him, thank him for voting YES on SB1439 in the rules committee and encourage the same on the floor of the house.
Representative Andy Tobin | 602-926-5172
2. Contact your state representative. Strongly, but politely, let him or her know you want them to vote YES on SB1439. Remind them that you expect them to support the Constitution, and that includes Article 1, Section 10 which says that the state needs to allow gold and silver to be used as legal tender. SB1439 will help facilitate this constitutional duty and you want a YES vote.
Contact info here:http://www.azleg.gov/alisStaticPages/HowToContactMember.asp
3. Share this information widely. Please pass this along to your friends and family. Also share it with any and all grassroots groups you’re in contact with around the state. Please encourage them to email this information to their members and supporters.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Currently all debts and taxes in Arizona and the rest of the United States are either paid with Federal Reserve Notes (dollars) which were authorized as legal tender by Congress, or with coins issued by the U.S. Treasury — very few of which have gold or silver in them.
The United States Constitution states in Article I, Section 10, “No State shall…make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts.” The Constitutional tender act is a big step towards that constitutional requirement which has been ignored for a long time in every state of the country. Such a tactic would achieve the desired goal of abolishing the Federal Reserve system by attacking it from the bottom up – pulling the rug out from under it by working to make its functions irrelevant at the state and local level.
Passage of the Constitutional Tender Act would introduce currency competition with Federal Reserve Notes. Professor William Greene explains further:
“Over time, as residents of the State use both Federal Reserve Notes and silver and gold coins, the fact that the coins hold their value more than Federal Reserve Notes do will lead to a “reverse Gresham’s Law” effect, where good money (gold and silver coins) will drive out bad money (Federal Reserve Notes). As this happens, a cascade of events can begin to occur, including the flow of real wealth toward the state’s treasury, an influx of banking business from outside of the State – as people in other states carry out their desire to bank with sound money – and an eventual outcry against the use of Federal Reserve Notes for any transactions.”
Once things get to that point, Federal Reserve notes would become largely unwanted and irrelevant for ordinary people. Nullifying the Fed on a state by state level is what will get us there.
Without a single act of Congress, the Federal Reserve system can be brought to its knees by passing such bills in states all over the country.
In Liberty,
Joan Lewis
Email
Cave Creek Merchants & Events Association welcomes the following new members
Animal Health Services
CITYSun Times
Dairy Queen
True West Magazine
Cave Creek Merchants and Events Association Board of Directors
Are there only eight patriotic Democrat Senators?
All freedom loving Americans should recognize the risky actions of the following Democrat Senators: Sen. Begich (D-AK), Sen. Hagan (D-NC), Sen. Heinrich (D-NM), Sen. Heitkamp (D-ND),Sen. Manchin (D-WV), Sen. Pryor (D-Arkansas ), Sen. Ester (D- Mt.) and Sen. Donnelly (D-IN)! These 8 courageous Democrat Senators broke ranks from their fellow Democrats and Pres. Obama to help preserve your 2nd Amendment rights and not surrender them to the United Nations. In a vote of 53 to 46 we escaped the most important step of the New World Order of the Bushes, Clinton and Obama needed for a complete take over. History and writings of our founding fathers tell us that the ONLY thing that stands between all of our freedoms and a totalitarian regime are the people's guns.
Sincerely,
Joseph DuPont
Towanda, Pennsylvania
Yes, we can
Have you completed your 2012 income tax form(s) yet? How long did you spend gathering all your receipts needed to prepare your income tax return? If you prepared your own tax return how much more time was required? If you engaged a professional tax preparer, how much did it cost you? Just complying with the income tax is a real burden. Doesn't this bother you just a little bit?
In a FairTax White Paper written by Karen Walby, Ph.D. and revised in 2012 one finds for every $4 paid in income tax by individuals it costs the tax payer $5. For businesses it's even worse; it costs the business $143 to send $100 to Uncle Sam. A staggering $431 billion annually is wasted just paying our tax bill. And the mental anguish for months and lost sleep; it's so unnecessary. If the income tax was replaced with the FairTax, the government receives the same tax money, we don't waste $431 billion annually, no tax return forms to complete and April 15 becomes just another nice spring day. Yes, we can have this.
Call and email your representative and senators; tell them you want the income tax replaced with the FairTax.
Glen E. Terrell
Arlington, Texas
[email protected]
Mark Kelly’s advice
It is easy to understand Mark Kelly’s opinion and how he got there. However, that does not change the fact that criminals do not obey laws. Consequently, thousands of new laws could be passed and it would make no difference in any of the massacres that have occurred in the past couple years. It is said there are nearly 9,000 restrictive gun laws on the books now and they did not stop the massacres. Why should anyone believe one more will make a difference.
Here is the best argument; there is already a law against murder and the punishment is quite severe. How will making a new law with punishment less severe solve the problem. Doing something detrimental to law abiding citizens will not and cannot provide an answer to the problem. But it can and will exacerbate the problem. Each one of those murderers set out to murder people, an action punishable by death in some places, life imprisonment in other places. How can a law that does not provide such severe a penalty provide a restraining force upon the perpetrator determined to kill? The answer, it can’t and won’t. The only feasible answer so far has come from the NRA, and Mark Kelly did advocate merging mental health records into the system in an effort to provide some type of control. However, even that could and may very well be abused by government. Therefore, before such a law should be put in place it should be studied intensely in an effort to prevent innocent people from being wrongly accused. Who among us thinks a fool proof system can be found when we cannot even get a no fly file done correctly. Some kind of check and recheck must be put in place along with an avenue of regress in a case of a misidentified profile.
It is obvious cooler heads must prevail to provide a legitimate solution to the problem rather than just jumping to conclusions as some congressmen and women have already done and just passing useless laws that will make no difference, that is of course if confiscation is actually not the goal of this government. If it is then they are not allowing a good crises to go to waste! In any case however, a filibuster may be required to make that point and if it is, use it.
The wheels of government were meant to turn slowly; when they do not there are usually errors made, sometimes severe ones. Let's avoid that this time. If due consideration is used the problem will be solved; if the restrictions put into law are obviously more directed toward law abiding citizens it will surely make the problem worse. Perhaps considerably worse.
Don Bitler
Scottsdale, AZ
New Fair Deal
Thanks to the input of tens of thousands of grassroots activists like you, specific details are emerging in the New Fair Deal legislative package. We’re getting ready for an April 15th launch on Tax Day, and we want to get your opinion on the legislation.
Here are some highlights from the New Fair Deal:
- Eliminate the sugar monopoly's price support subsidy,
- Eliminate the Wind Production Tax Credit,
- Repeal the electric car subsidy,
- Eliminate the Economic Development Administration,
- Repeal the renewable energy electricity credit,
- Many, many more.
The New Fair Deal is based on four core conservative principles: stop corporate welfare, stop overspending, tax fairly, and empower the individual. Support is growing for this common sense package. Just this week, three more Congressmen joined our efforts: Reps. Justin Amash, Matt Salmon, and Mark Meadows!
We need you to lend your voice to make the New Fair Deal a reality. More importantly, we need your approval of the legislation that will be put before Congress.
We want you to work with statesmen like Mick Mulvaney, Tom Price, and Jim Jordan to create solutions from the bottom-up, starting with the grassroots. Visit FreedomWorks.org to read the legislation and express your opinion.
In Liberty,
Matt Kibbe
President and CEO, FreedomWorks
Lady Gaga, Karl Rove, Buzzfeed, and fracking
Establishment Republicans are in the midst of what can only be described as an intellectual meltdown. They must be.
Whether it's the revelation that American Action Network attempted to get the ever-controversial, exceptionally talented Lady Gaga to perform for $1 million at the Republican National Convention — an institution, to put it mildly, she shares almost nothing in common with.
Or Karl Rove's American Crossroads push to defeat, not Democrats, but tea party candidates, the same movement that had helped the GOP to reclaim a majority in the House of Representatives in 2010.
To now the National Republican Congressional Committee's (NRCC) hailing as a model for future Republican messaging Buzzfeed, a website that drives traffic with pictures of talking cats, celebrity gossip, sexual innuendo, and sci-fi. It's hard not to ask what the heck is going on.
"BuzzFeed's eating everyone's lunch," National Journal reports NRCC spokesman Gerrit Lansing as saying. "They're making people want to read and be cognizant of politics in a different way."
Yeah, by interspersing political stories amid pure trivial nonsense with headlines like "Floating Poop In Space — A Confidential Discussion,""The 28 Most Ironic Things That Have Ever Happened," and "This Guy Is Obsessed With Becoming A Mermaid."
Perhaps I am simply being obtuse. I'm certain the NRCC might respond that it was merely looking at Buzzfeed's web layout as something to emulate to generate more clicks, something indicated in the National Journal story.
But Lansing went further than that, saying a site like Buzzfeed — which can only be defined as appealing to the lowest common denominator — was in fact some new way to talk about politics. Who knew floating poop in the void of space could be such an effective tool?
Here, the NRCC is acknowledging something that Barack Obama already knows and took full advantage of in 2008, which is that politics in America is dead.
Let's face it. When a candidate's appeal as a pop culture icon trumps any examination whatsoever of the issues facing the nation, when people are more driven by who's advancing in Dancing with the Stars than what's going on in their local community, then perhaps our society really has devolved into a lemming-like mob of sycophants.
Robert Romano
Americans for Limited Government
The Daily Editorialist
We’d be better off if the parties were still relevant
A few weeks ago, the Republican National Committee issued a 100-page report aimed at reviving the GOP after its poor showing in last November’s elections. It was remarkably blunt about the specifics of the party’s shortcomings — its lack of inclusiveness, its hapless data initiatives, its poor grassroots organizing. What it did not take on, however, was an issue the RNC can do little about: the diminished influence, if not irrelevance, of both major parties in American politics.
In the early years of my political career, the parties were pretty much the only game in town. If you wanted to be a candidate, there was no one else to turn to for help with building a campaign organization, finding volunteers, making contact with activists and donors, or creating a network of supporters. People could and did win elections without official party support — but not often, and not easily.
The parties also registered voters, turned them out on Election Day, and provided much of the campaign funding. They not only articulated policy and kept the other party honest, but also served to forge a policy consensus among the disparate coalitions that made them up, striving to make themselves as inclusive as possible.
All this is much less evident these days. At the very top, once the nomination is sewed up, presidential candidates run independently of the party. They have their own staffs, do their own fundraising, and build their own organizations. I’ll be stunned if we don’t see future presidents take a leaf from President Obama’s playbook and form their own grassroots organizations outside the party apparatus to pressure Washington lawmakers.
The rise of increasingly influential outside players has done much the same thing for candidates lower down. They can now hire their own signature-gatherers for petitions, their own pollsters, their own consultants and specialists in virtually every aspect of modern campaigning. Scores of groups representing various factions within a party have emerged as significant players in the political process. The parties are simply outmatched in resources and organization. They’ve even lost control of campaign funding, as special interest groups with their own organizations — the NRA, say, or the Club for Growth — not only put money behind or against candidates, but also turn out voters on behalf of their favorite issues.
The parties’ loss of influence is especially obvious when you look at primaries. Where party approval once was tantamount to nomination, today it’s anything but. In last year’s elections, any number of party-approved candidates were beaten by well-funded outside challengers. It’s one of the reasons that building consensus on Capitol Hill has become so difficult: with congressional districts drawn to favor one party or another, incumbents live in fear of taking a stance that might draw a challenger with special-interest backing.
At the state and local level, party organizations are finding it harder than ever to recruit volunteers interested in building the party itself, rather than in promoting a favored cause by trying to take over its apparatus. Where volunteers once put in many hours licking stamps, walking the streets to identify and register voters, or getting people to the polls, today far fewer people feel they can justify the time unless it’s on behalf of a particular candidate or issue.
Obviously, the parties are not entirely out of the game. Some roles only a national party can play, as with the presidential nominating process. But where they once were able to exert control, now they can at best hope for a bit of influence.
I favor strengthening the role of political parties in our system. They once played a central role in identifying candidates, articulating ideas and positions, and identifying talent for government; today, those jobs often are not performed at all. Robust political parties might even help break the impasse in Washington. They used to bring a wide array of Americans together under one banner, and pressed their members to learn how to build consensus on behalf of a larger cause. This was a skill that carried over to Capitol Hill. Independence from the party may be a fine thing for self-expression, but it carries a cost to the country.
Lee Hamilton
Director of the Center on Congress at Indiana University
U.S. Tax Gap is estimated to be $600 billion
Time magazine reported this week that the estimated tax gap - the amount of money the IRS fails to collect due to misfiling or tax cheaters - is an estimated $600 billion dollars. The fact that this money goes uncollected ultimately increases the tax rates and the amount of money that you and I pay.
An article from the 2002 study by the Government Accountability Office showed that "fifty-six percent of [tax] returns prepared by a paid preparer had errors in comparison to only forty-seven percent prepared by the taxpayer." In short, over 50 percent of tax returns being filed in the 2002 study were wrong and we "only" had 53,280 pages of tax code back then. Fast forward to 2012 and the code has grown to over 73,000 pages. That's taxation without comprehension and it is only expanding the tax gap.
Studies show that simplifying the code leads to better compliance. That makes sense, but what makes a lot more sense is to throw out the entire income tax code and switch to a national retail sales tax like that proposed by the FairTax Bill - HR25 / S122.
The FairTax is simply a different way to collect taxes - by taxing consumption rather than income. Under the FairTax plan the government would collect the same amount of money without the complexities of the income tax. In fact, the FairTax bill is only 133 pages double spaced. The number of "filers" would be reduced from 150 million individual returns to simple sales reports from approximately 20 million businesses.
Yes, it's possible to cheat a sales tax but, unlike income tax where it takes only one person to cheat by not reporting or under-reporting their income, a sales tax take two people to cheat - the person selling and the person buying. In addition, the bill specifically includes provisions to reward whistle-blowers which makes it a little less likely people will cheat. Not to mention that well over 80 percent of retail sales are through big chain stores like Walmart or Target and they are not going to risk their business by cheating the system. Used items are not taxed under the FairTax so there's no compliance issue there.
After 100 years of income tax, and the code growing from 400 pages in 1913 to over 73,000 pages last year, it's time we do something that makes sense. Tweaking the code hasn't worked. Let's throw it out and switch to the FairTax.
Sincerely,
James R. Donnell
Cameron Park, California
