For more than a decade, the Georgia Secretary of State’s office has kept records of how many people voted in the Democratic and Republican primaries. Buried deep in those records are the number of blacks, whites, hispanics, asians and others who cast ballots in each party’s respective primary. Below is the demographic breakdown for the last eight years worth of Democratic and Republican primaries:
Democrats
Republicans
Most of these numbers tell us some things that we already know. Specifically that black voters make up a significant chunk of the Democratic primary electorate.
Here’s what stood out to me:
For the last eight years, only twice have blacks comprised more than two percent of the Republican primary electorate. Since the Secretary of State’s office started keeping tabs on how many hispanics were voting in the party primaries, Democrats hold a slight lead over Republicans for these voters’ support. And finally, white voters average about 95% of Republican primary voters.
Georgia is a growing state and more importantly, Georgia is becoming a more diverse state.
The U.S Census Bureau estimates that in 2007, 65.6% of Georgians are white; 30% are black; 2.8% are asian; and 7.8% are hispanic.
As Georgia grows and as Georgia becomes more diverse, the question is how much longer can the GOP maintain their majority when most of the people voting for them are white.
Consider this an open thread.
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John:
Why don’t you stop trying to play tired old “gotcha” politics against the Ox?
I would argue that Georgia is one of the more progressive Southern States and we will be blue again before the rest of the south.
Andre, would you mind if I posted this on UGA Liberal and Link to it here. I think these numbers are incredible and I would like to share them with my readers also.
I’m not in the OX’s or anyone else’s camp, but I would be OK if he were the nominee. I’m going to take a stab at this in a paragraph or two even though there’s a book about it. (read the book.)
IMO, the fair tax will work under one condition. It would take an amendment to the constitution prohibiting income tax, user fees, and just about all other forms of current government income. Otherwise we will just have more taxes. Fines, such as parking tickets, would have to be taken into account so that it’s $50 not $750.
In theory, the fair tax will only be on finished goods so the whole sale costs don’t spiral out of control. No tax on the water or electricity that goes into the manufacturing plant, no taxes on the parts, no taxes on the wages that have to be matched by the employer, so the overall costs of the widget goes down before the government adds a sales tax, I think 23% is the number used, keeping the cost of a widget roughly about the same as what it costs to make a widget now. Competition would drive the price down to keep the greedy capitalists from pocketing all the extra income.
Every household would get a check every month to help cover the basic cost of living, food, clothing and shelter. Every household would be taxed 23% of what it spends, regardless if it’s $10,000 a year or $1,000,000 a year. Therefore no one is penalized for earning more money. Communism, they made more than me so they should have to pay more, would start becoming a thing of the past.
I realize this simple explanation has holes you can drive a truck through, so, once again, read the book. We still need to work on spending, but it’s called the fair tax not the perfect economy.
In theory, the Democrats may be looking towards a 10% VAT tax on goods in order to pay for these Obama Bills:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/26/AR2009052602909.html
I’m certain Neal Boortz will be in favor of this, right?
John K.
Immigration should be based on the best and brightest color blind to race and religion.
Please point out WHERE in the immigration laws, OR the US Constitution where it says only “brightest” people, or the “best” people shall be allowed into this country as legal immigrants?
GOPGeorgia
You demonstrated a lack of knowledge with your 23% number. The Fair tax is 30 cents on a dollar tax. If you had the local tax it would be close to 40 cents on a dollar. Why would any rational person not think this system would not motivate people not to buy things or cheat the system?
The State has a collection problem with less than 10 cents on a dollar why would any rational person not see 30 cents on dollar the problem would only be put on steroids? And why do you think sending the tax collector after small business would help with job growth. All you are doing is shifting the IRS or similar collection group to go after small
sorry
…if you add….
JK,
I said “I think.” The fair tax is NOT 30 cents on the dollar. The final legislation has not been drafted yet. A bill maybe drafted, but not one that has passed. That’s a lack of knowledge from someone who ran for congress. Right now, it’s a concept.
Unless we all go to the barter system, or make everything ourselves, we will buy things. If you want a new flat screen TV, are you going to bestbuy, or the flea market down the street? Right now, many people are paying close to 50 cents on the dollar in taxes. It would actually reduce the amount they pay.
The IRS would now “go after” everyone equally, not just the small. The word “fair” is used for a reason.
People cheating on taxes? That doesn’t happen now? You need to come up with a better argument.
GOPGeorgia
THE FACT IS John Linder only said it could be hire not lower. And by the way you avoided my questions. And which one of us had our facts wrong?
The FairTax statutory rate, unlike most U.S. state-level sales taxes, is calculated on a tax base that includes the amount of FairTax paid. A final price of $100 includes $23 of taxes. Congressman John Linder has stated that the FairTax would be implemented as an inclusive tax, which would include the tax in the retail price, not added on at checkout—an item on the shelf for five dollars would be five dollars total.[26][37] The receipt would display the tax as 23 percent of the total.[38] Linder states the FairTax is presented as a 23 percent tax rate for easy comparison to income tax rates (the taxes it would be replacing). The plan’s opponents call the semantics deceptive. FactCheck called the presentation misleading, saying that it hides the real truth of the tax rate.[39] Bruce Bartlett stated that polls show tax reform support is extremely sensitive to the proposed rate,[35] and called the presentation confusing and deceptive based on the conventional method of calculating sales taxes.[40] Proponents believe it is both inaccurate and misleading to say that an income tax is 23 percent and the FairTax is 30 percent as it implies that the sales tax burden is higher. A common reverse comparison is for supporters to quote the income tax system exclusively; a 25 percent income tax and 7.65 percent FICA tax, a total 33 percent inclusive tax, is equal to a 50 percent exclusive tax.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FairTax
JUST THE FACTS!
The vast majority of business are small with not nearly the accounting and legal power of a big business. Any rational person could see this would benefit a large business over the growth engine of the economy small business.
Also a good business only makes about 3% to 5% on the gross. And not all businesses make a profit. How do you get to a 50% imbedded tax number? Also did you factor the 30% a business or person would now pay on benefits via the Fair Tax? Would that not wipe out a good part of the pay roll savings argument?
As I said before, I’m not going to go every detail that’s in the book. Read it. My point is that it needs an amendment to make it work.
GOPGeorgia
Your defense of the Fair Tax is I do not know and please read the book I cannot defend. The Ox group better come up with something better than this!
FairTax, Flawed Tax
By BRUCE BARTLETT
WSJ-Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s unexpectedly strong second-place showing in the recent Iowa Republican straw poll is widely attributed to his support for the FairTax.
For those who never heard about it, the FairTax is a national retail sales tax that would replace the entire current federal tax system. It was originally devised by the Church of Scientology in the early 1990s as a way to get rid of the Internal Revenue Service, with which the church was then at war (at the time the IRS refused to recognize it as a legitimate religion). The Scientologists’ idea was that since almost all states have sales taxes, replacing federal taxes with the same sort of tax would allow them to collect the federal government’s revenue and thereby get rid of their hated enemy, the IRS.
Rep. John Linder (R., Ga.) and Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R., Ga.) have introduced legislation (H.R. 25/S. 1025) to implement the FairTax. They assert that a rate of 23% would be sufficient to replace federal individual and corporate income taxes as well as payroll and estate taxes. Mr. Linder’s Web site claims that U.S. gross domestic product will rise 10.5% the first year after enactment, exports will grow by 26%, and real investment spending will increase an astonishing 76%.
In reality, the FairTax rate is not 23%. Messrs. Linder and Chambliss get this figure by calculating the tax as if it were already incorporated into the price of goods and services. (This is known as the tax-inclusive rate.) Calculating it the conventional way that every other sales tax is calculated, with the tax on top of the price, yields a rate of 30%. (This is called the tax-exclusive rate.)
The distinction is confusing, but think of it this way. If a product costs $1 at retail, the FairTax adds 30%, for a total of $1.30. Since the 30-cent tax is 23% of $1.30, FairTax supporters say the rate is 23% rather than 30%.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118800635034508655.html
Is there any tax idea or system that is not flawed? I think that all of them have flaws in some respect. Almost anything that would replace the current system & reduce taxes would be better than what we have now.
What part of I’m not part of the OX group don’t you understand? Let’s see you explain another book in a paragraph, how about the Bible?
By the way, Bartlett’s reasoning is flawed.
I haven’t seen you state that you have read the book, so until you get more informed, I’m done discussing it with you. Do you think you can explain the Bible, war and peace, or even Stephen King’s, the stand in 20 sentences or less? And fit in all the details?
UGALiberal,
Go right ahead.
That’s a lack of knowledge from someone who ran for congress.
No, it isn’t. Linder himself said on CSpan that the rate was being rescored and that the preliminary results were as high as a 26% inclusive rate, or $34 cents on the dollar tax exclusive.
….I realize this simple explanation has holes you can drive a truck through, so, once again, read the book.
Those are parrot-words that ALWAYS spill forth from the mouths of FTers when confronted by someone who has read and studied THE BILL.
From THE BOOK “The words of H.R. 25…. aren’t the FairTax. The fairtax is the collection of ideas underlying H.R. 25″
So…the Fairtax is – like a unicorn – a mythical beast and one that cannot be even identified by the text that defines what it looks like?
If Boortz doesn’t believe that the FairTax Bill is the FairTax, yet that is the PROPOSED, SPONSORED LEGISLATION and he won’t debate that legislation, you and he are a bunch of clowns.
GOPGeorgia
I asked very simple questions that you could not answer.
Also a good business only makes about 3% to 5% on the gross. And not all businesses make a profit. How do you get to a 50% imbedded tax number? Also did you factor the 30% a business or person would now pay on benefits via the Fair Tax?
How can you be behind a tax plan you do not understand? I could ask more simple questions but you cannot even get past the basic questions. Why would any rational person think you have the slightest clue what you are talking about?
GOPGeorgia
BTW I did read the book and that is why I know you have no clue what you are talking about!
JK,
I looked at the income tax CASH OUTLAYS for 6000 public companies and found that they actually pay about 1% of sales.
Approaching the embedded tax figure that way, using corporate data and IRS collection data blows the 26% embedded tax ‘savings’ to hell.
The FTers own eceonomist confessed that the only way to get there was to include BOTH employer and employee SS and Medicare taxes for every level of supply. Using margin figures like you did means that the embedded taxes are only about 8 to 12%. Including total FICA, you ‘might’ get to 16%.
If you do that though the business about “you get 100% of your paycheck” is a LIE.
Follow the trail, to the extent you CAN, and the $100 million spent to fund this little gift to mankind goes back to the corps who get $trillions in income tax forgiveness.
Oxendine really does need to explain how Georgia will pay this 30% tax on taxable expenditures for medicaid, DOT contracts, and everything else this side of education. He really does.
While he is at it, perhaps he can explain why anyone will buy Georgia’s bonds at full market rates, after the income tax exemption on the bond interest is gone.
Turn up the FT heat on Ox.
He will have to flee the FT kitchen.
Can anyone defend the Fair Tax?
Can anyone defend the Fair Tax?
When you point out that they have hitched a ride on a very real pig, they want you to saddle up on their unicorn.
Can anyone defend the system we have now? I want to buy land. I take out a loan to buy the land and pay it off. If I don’t pay the government money every year, they take it from me. It seems as If I didn’t own the land after all. Seems like I am just renting it from the government. Sounds like sort of like socialism, where the government owns and controls some of the means of production.
The fair tax as defined by me: Until a law or a constitutional amendment is passed, it is a concept. How many bills have been called a consumers rights protection act? Many. And there is nothing that would prevent an amendment to build a dam to be attached to the consumer protection rights act or to the fair tax act. So HR 25/S 296)may exist, and it may be called the fairtax act, but until it passes, it is just a bill that can change many times and in many ways.
As far as “how can I be behind a plan that I do not understand,” how many congressmen have read and understood every word of the federal budget which is passed every year? they voted for it. If you had been elected, you may have voted for it. Does that mean you would be 100% behind every item in the budget? True legislation usually has some good parts and some bad parts. It would be nice if it were black and white, but it’s usually not. I understand the concept. The system we have now can be improved and be made fairer. The details may not be perfect, but few things in life are.
For the: is it 23% or 30% question look here: http://www.fairtax.org/site/News2?news_iv_ctrl=1541&page=NewsArticle&id=8248
To learn more about the fair tax go here: http://www.fairtax.org/
To answer JK’s question of how did I get to the 50% tax number; first let me clarify I did not say it was “imbedded” nor did I mean it was “embedded.” I remember reading that somewhere, but I’m not inclined to look it up for you right now. Let’s not assume it’s a simple question.
But let’s look at the fair tax for those on minimum wage:
Let’s try an example: In Georgia, the minimum wage is $6.55 and hour or about $13,500 a year. The IRS would take about $500 not counting FICI. Georgia would take about the same, so that another $500. Now let’s assume that taxpayer owns a home and he can afford up to half his monthly income to pay for a mortgager taxes and insurance, so about $550 at an interest rate of 6% that a house worth about 65K. Yearly taxes on 65K home are about $800 a year, depending if it’s in a city or not. In Georgia, we pay 28 cents a gallon on gas. Let assume our guy gets 20 miles to the gallon and drives an average of 40 miles a day, so that’s another $204. and at $2 a gallon he just spent another $1,256. Car tag, title, drivers license = another $100. Now our guy has got $3,540 left over to spend and about 10 percent of that will be taxes, so that’s another $354. So under this system he pays about $2,458, so he’s paying about 18% of his income. Under the fair tax, he would pay 23% but also get a prebate under the fairtax. The FairTax actually eliminates and reimburses all federal taxes for those below the poverty line. Which system do you think he would prefer? The current which leaves him about to $3,540 to spend or $5,340 to spend?
If he is retired, he is paying down ALREADY TAXED accumulated savings. Either a VAT or a FAIR?tax taxes him twice.
No one anywhere near retirement is going to support this nonsense.
You paid absolutely no attention to the fact that the guy does NOT get 100% of his paycheck as we have demonstrated.
Which is it? Does he get 100% of his paycheck, but pay the same prices, or does he get 85% of his paycheck and pay 76% of the current prices?
Why do you FTers keep lying about this?
Neil Boortz wrote this on 9/15/2005:
Boortz admits either 100% of paycheck OR 22% embedded tax claim is a LIE
It is even worse if your employer pays your health insurance, for he will deduct the Fair?tax on the premiums.
Bill Simon…you have an interesting world view. It is not based on facts or history…rather, it seems to be an amusing combination of fiction, talk radio entertainment and paranoia. Dick Cheney could only relish in his success at leading a charge to completely brainwash you. I normally would say not to drink the “Kool-Aid,” but when Rush and Hannity tell you and the rest of their followers to…I suggest you do so. This country would be a lot more succesful without the obstructions and set backs created by your ideology.
Furthermore, how did a tax idea essentially created by a talk radio host attract so much attention. Boortz is not a qualified legal expert nor is he trained in policy analysis (he did get a law degree from an UNACCREDITED law school). Michael Graetz’s debate with Boortz a few years ago on CSPAN was quite amusing. Here we have Michael Graetz, arguably one of history’s greatest thinkers and crafters of tax policy, debating the fair tax with a talk radio host. Boortz had no leg stand on and reverted to old fashioned name calling and hollow rhetoric. Go figure.
Oh yeah, Indy.
20 years from now, employers will not be providing health insurance. It might be more like 10. Same with 401ks and pensions (not that pensions really exist anymore anyways).
Watch. We can not continue spending 17% of our GDP on healthcare. In the end, the business community, the federal and the state governments are going to come to a private-public partnership. Individuals will have HSAs that are funded by government vouchers and matching contributions from your employer. Same goes for retirement plans.
Which leads me to a question…when business supports government subsidized healthcare for all, is it still socialism to you right wingers? Or, since the capitalists are on board, is it capitalism?
What about when both sides agree to forcing insurance companies and healthcare providers to restructure into Non-Profits?
Goldwater, I agree about healthcare. I would have preferred that health insurance be outlawed, except for catastrophic, putting patients and doctors in the payment equation, but that was not to be. Something very clearly has to be done. Health care is yet another bubble that will burst, for the income of the people cannot keep pace nor can employer costs.
You would probably agree with me that putting a 30% tax on health services is more than just nuts for a state government making medicaid and employee health plan expsnditures, especially one with an unfunded health plan liability of $20 billion.
GOPGeorgia
You seem like a nice guy defending a sinking ship with no life raft. You should read and learn and stop putting you foot in your mouth. You are the poster supporter of the Fair Tax. You guys know enough talking points to be dangerous.
Peewater Whackjob,
At least _I_ am interesting. Putting a description down for you would take too many hours poring through Roget’s for just the right words.
GC
Boortz did not come up with the Fair Tax. He, along with John Linder just wrote the book to explain it. I like the concept. I would prefer anything over what we have now. Which, by the way is so confusing that our politician, who wrote the laws, can’t follow them.
It may need some work but it’s a start.
As far as HSA go, they are a great way for people to have more affordable coverage. We had a HSA about 4 years ago and the only reason we switched back to regular insurance was because no one knew what they were then. I was constantly explaining how the insurance worked to every office. Now they are familiar with the program. The best thing about a HSA is any money not used by the end of the year is put into a retirement account. That would keep people from running to the doctors office every time they had a cold.
I like the concept too. Radical transformation toward a consumption tax will be hugely disruptive and therefore hugely profitable for those ‘in the know.’
My extensive research into this was with an eye toward making money and preserving wealth, not because I stood to make money on Peach Pundit arguing with zombies.
In the words of Eastwood….”Go ahead. Make my day.”
Nobody has answered how Oxendine figures that the FairTax would be a good thing for the GEORGIA government he seeks to head, when:
Georgia has to pay the 30% Federal FT on its noneducation payroll, purchased goods and contract services.
Georgia loses tax-exempt bond financing that lowers its borrowing costs 25%.
Georgia has an unfunded $20 billion liability for employee/retiree health care and the FT increases these future obligations with the 30% tax. (Yeah I hear the malarkey about embedded tax savings, but at most those are only half of the increase, plus there are probably fewer embedded taxes in health care than any other industry.)
A 30% Federal sales tax will suck all the oxygen out of state sales tax collections.
Ox is a fool and so is any other state or local official promoting the Fair?tax.
Man, just dropped back in on this thread & it looks like the thread jacking police need to crack heads!
No one will answer why they think that if you add this collection burden on the State which already had a problem with collecting sales tax now why they think a 400% to 500% increase would not make the problem worse?
How would the State handle collection issues? Who would have first rights via liens?
Bucky,
The vast majority of Republicans hold to the Fair?tax as hold to right-to-life.
Stridency on abortion and financial lunacy are taking this party DOWN.
This was not a thread hijacking just an exposure of GOP lunatic positions that no thinking Georgian will embrace. The times that I have gone on talk radio to really explain the FT truth – using the BILL, not the book – the folks in or near retirement came out of the woodwork against it.
Barrow smashed Burns and Stone with it. Inez Tennenbaum in SC threw such a scare into Jim Demint that he dropped it in favor of another alternative.
The GOP isn’t only losing minorities, it is losing fiscal conservatives who actually THINK.
I don’t think a threadjacking occurred. This post was simply taken from a rather meaningless snapshot of statistical figures based on race and expanded upon to further examine the actual policies and other associated details which cause the Republican party to lose support among those who aren’t die-hard members of the old guard.
Although, you might say the Fair Tax debate did get big enough to have its own post.
I am a Libertarian, not a member of the GOP. I am not a pro-lifer.
I like the idea of the FT because it’s simple and everyone pays, including anyone in a cash business. I would not mind a flat tax either. I do not know enough about the fair tax to know if it would work, just know what I’ve read. I do know that the current systems stinks!
What I’d like more than anything is for the spending to stop. Stop with the grants. Stop sending money to other countries. Stop with the airports that no one uses. Stop with the bridges to no where. Stop funding ACORN. Stop the push for national healthcare that we can’t afford. Stop the bailout!
Just stop spending money that has nothing to do with the function of the federal government.
You now have your very own Fair Tax Open thread for your reading and posting pleasure.
Is there a single thread on PP that can’t be turned into a Fair Tax discussion?
It’s our very own version of Godwin’s Law.
Ah, and the Fair?tax is a tax on abortionists, so there you go…..
Well Indy, if you tax something, you get less of it.
Thus, the fair tax is pro-life.
Can we weave gay marriage in, too?
That would be quite a trifecta.
Oh yeah, gay marrige would be taxed too.
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