OzarkKid07

Wayne, I can appreciate your point of view, and definitely appreciate your desire to watch out for the lower income families, but two things are ture here: 1) You must not have read the FairTax book or bill, in which there are very blatant facts addressing low-income families. 2) "THEY" can not start adding exceptions, unless "WE" let them because "THEY" is defined in the Constitution as "of the people, by the people, and for the people", so "THEY" is "US". The concept of "THEY" is a non-participant, irresponsible view of our government that has been put forth by fear-mongering and control-obsessed politicians.

Soggyfeet, I just realized what you were getting at. Sorry. I don't really wake up until noon. :-) Here is a better answer to that point. The FairTax has several features that make it difficult and very risky for persons to have a scam business in order to purchase items tax free. First, in order for any person to purchase items tax free for business purposes, the business has to be a registered seller and possess a registered seller certificate issued by the state sales tax authority. Registered sellers are expected to file monthly or quarterly sales tax returns with the state (depending on sales volume). The certificate enables the business to purchase tax free from wholesale vendors, but the vendor must retain a copy of the registration certificate to justify not having collected tax on the sale. When a business purchases items for business use from a retail vendor, they have to pay the tax on the purchase and take a credit against the tax due on their monthly sales tax return. They must keep invoices/receipts to document what they purchased and the amount of the purchase. They might also make note of the purpose of the purchase on the invoice. Also, as registered sellers, they are subject to the possibility of being audited by the state. During such an audit, they will have to produce the invoices for all the “business purchases” that they did not pay sales tax on and will have to be able to show that they were bona fide business expenses. If they cannot prove this, then they will have to pay the taxes that should have been paid when the items were purchased, plus interest and penalties. The probability of being audited will be much greater than it is under the current system with its over 140 million tax filers. Under the FairTax, there will be less than 20 million businesses that will be filing sales tax returns and thus subject to the possibility of being audited. Thus, the probability of tax cheats getting caught will be much greater than it is today, making tax evasion riskier than it is today. Additionally, while the FairTax has much stronger taxpayer rights than does the current tax system, the FairTax legislation provides for a number of fines and penalties for noncompliance. It also authorizes a mechanism for reporting tax cheats and obtaining a reward. An example would be 1-800-TAX-CHET. Another potential scam would be to have a “fake” family business in order to buy things for family members tax free. The FairTax has a specific provision to prevent this. Although it does not prohibit businesses from providing taxable property or services as gifts, prizes, rewards, or as remuneration for employment, the gift, reward, etc. is considered to be the conversion of property or services from business use to personal use and is therefore taxable. Likewise, there is a similar provision to prevent abuse of employee discounts. Under the FairTax, employer-provided employee discounts over 20 percent are taxable. The term “employee discount” means an employer’s offer of taxable property or services for sale to its employees or their families for less than the offer of such taxable property or services to the general public. If the employee discount amount exceeds 20 percent of the price to the general public, then the sale of such taxable property or services by the employer to the employee is considered the conversion of property or services to personal use and is subject to tax. The taxable amount is the amount by which the discount exceeds 20 percent of the price to the general public.

Hi Dano! One of the great things about the FairTax is that it does not have to be policed very much. For sure, there is no April 15th, but the point of the FairTax is that if you can't afford to buy the item, you are not getting taxed. It's fair! More than 80% of all tax returns are eliminated under the FairTax--every individual filing. What remains are retail outlets collecting the FairTax. Of these, 80 percent of all retail sales now occur at large retail chains like Wal-Mart. The point is oversight will still reside under the Treasury Department but the government's responsibility will be over a far smaller "universe" of tax collection points making compliance oversight far less costly and far more effective than the current system which costs $265 billion a year in compliance costs and still comes up $350 billion a year short of what is owed. It is a federal tax though, and like now, states and local municipalities would have their own decision-making on how to tax their citizens. I can tell you though, few cities and states are going to want to elect officials that are in favor of income taxes once people get a taste of that freedom. They'll push for a FairTax at all levels. It will be a grassroots movement at all levels of government. I think the tax code currently is 60,000 pages or so. Once the 16th amendment is repealed by the FairTax (HR 25, S 1025) there will be no tax code and no IRS. ALso, if you go on www.fairtax.org, there is a calculator. Have your last year's tax info handy, and I mean all of it, not just gross wages, and it will tell you where you would stand under FairTax!

Soggyfeet, that is a very astute observation of a potential loop hole, and I am glad you are really putting it to thought, but they already covered that in HR25. EVERYONE in the U.S. pays the sales tax on retail items. Individuals, families, business, non-profits, churches, government... EVERYONE. There are NO exemptions for anyone. ANd FairTax is printed separately on the receipt so that the person has an awareness of how much tax they are paying. Unless you want no record of having purchased an item, in which you get no power of return or exchange and no possibility of warranty, and unless that business wants to have a very shady customer base, taxes will be turned in by the collection point, which is every business. There will of course be some degree of an underground, but that is inevitable under ANY tax plan.

I would just like to point out that there are not just Obama supporters and McCain supporters out there. I mean, apart from the polls that show that Sarah Palin could probably beat all of them if that vote were a possibility, there are a lot of us who are completely disgusted with both parties. As Glenn Beck said, both parties have sold their souls. The liberals in politics are spinmasters and the liberals who make up the constituency are just misled and confused. Republicans, though they are the party of true reform, starting with Abraham Lincoln, have compromised and buckled to appease the liberals so much that they are mostly moderate in their political views. There are a few true CONSERVATIVES, such as Sarah Palin, who are choosing to dress up as Republicans because the moo-cow herd mentality of our nation will not deviate from the conformist path and elect someone who has ideas and ideals and a desire to actually put the power in the hands of the people, rather than in the hands of elected officials who, after ONE TERM, get full salary and full benefits FOR LIFE. I fall into a growing demographic of people who support McCain and Palin (not necessarily in that order) because they are the closest to what we believe in, while still having a chance to get elected. It wouldn't do us a lot of good to still be rooting for Huckabee, who is a true conservative, so we are forced to accept some bologna in order to stay away from the ALL OUT SOCIALISM and borderline fascism that would exist under a far left government. That all being said, whatever your affiliation, I HIGHLY recommend that you take a good long look at the FairTax. Read the FairTax book. Go to the website. Get your questions answered and think critically about it. That is the first step in returning the power in our nation to the people. Private property and money is the basic building block of a free country, and government control of ANY percentage of those things the beginning of Marxist communism. Under FairTax, American people would get the CHOICE (that word that so many liberals hide behind for their rantings) of when to pay taxes and how much to pay. Also, Americans living at poverty level or below would pay NO federal taxes. Finally, you wouldn't have to rent your land from the government anymore and all the taxes that are "gotcha" taxes such as the gift tax, the death tax, and the estate/inheritance tax, would be gone. Currently, we have very little control individually over our taxes, and FairTax would return that control back to us while actually taxing the "underground" black markets, tourists, and illegals that currently do not contribute at all. Our revenue would go up, but it would be based on people consumption and support of the economy, rather than on people's hard work.

Hey, does anybody know where Sarah Palin stands in regards to the FairTax? And on that note, I am surprised that none of the conservatives on here have brought that wonderful piece of potential reform up for discussion.

For my money the best shoe I've ever worn, maybe ever is called a Mion. Go to www.mionfootwwear.com. They have a great selection and it's high quality.

This little report is way out of the Ozarks, but it's about bluegill and I need to tell someone so I'm putting it here. I stopped by a little pond in Maryville, Illinois a few days ago and pulled out my fly rod (I carry 2 spinning rods and a fly rod and tackle with me at all times) and thought I'd give it a shot, even though I knew they weren't on beds yet. They turned out to be about 6 feet down in a 7 foot pond, so I put a bead on a black spider that I tie and a pork rind and went to town. I started catching one a bluegill about every third cast and they were NICE. There were to old guys sittin' on buckets casting worms under bobbers and they were gettin' pretty frustrated watchin' me catch all these fish, so I gave them to the guys. I ended up giving them like 40 bluegill, of which they kept the ones that were 8 inches or more. There were several that I think were 10 or 11. All in all, it was a BLAST! I can't wait until they start spawning here!

I agree whole-heartedly with what you're saying Phil. Sometimes Christians particularly are quite contrary to what Jesus actually wanted his followers to portray through their lifestyle, but in this age of relativism and comfort-based disbelief in the things of God, sometimes a good discussion standing up for God and his interaction with the physical realm is a great way to show someone that you care about them. It shows purpose, which is something that can not be found outside of God. For example, I know people who have no purpose and so they fish or play tennis or pick up girls or whatever, as if they are on a mission to accomplish it, teach it, live it. A self-gratifying activity becomes the purpose but when we stand up and say there's more to life it shows that there is a higher purpose to living besides just getting safely to the grave. The key is doing it because we really have a concern for the person, not a desire to just be right. To address something you said Al, you talked about people having a "positive" impact in the world and having the power to contribute good or bad things. While it can be said that humans do have the power to arbitrarily commit good and bad acts, there's a scientific principle that says that all effects have a cause. In order for an act to be construed as positive or negative in the first place, it must be compared to an absolute value. Good and bad are different for each person if there is no origin of the values and philosophers from the beginning of civilization have not been able to pinpoint the physical cause of those values. I would challenge you to look deeply at your own concept of good and bad and see if it has roots in Christian theology. Assuming that you have not blindly accepted your definitions of good and bad at the behest of the people in your life or, even worse, from the media, your choices to identify your own positive actions must be rooted in something and I would wager that they're rooted in the teachings of Jesus. I hope this isn't construed as an attack on anyone, I just really enjoy these types of discussions, even though when it gets really scientific it's out of my league. I'm more the philosophical type I guess, but I do enjoy the science that I can understand.

One of the most interesting things about the whole Big Bang/Evolution vs. Creation/microevolution is who sees the evidence for each argument as reliable. Those who really want to see how fossils and DNA build and present a story that proves natural selection and evolution see it and are less than critical of the missing pieces of the story, HOPING and TRUSTING that science will eventually unearth the rest of the story and give us all insight into how insignificant we really are- better yet, show us that we are ultimately no different than our pets and the ingenius fish that we trick with Wiggle Warts. And the Creationists who so willingly see a creative, intelligent Designer- some of whome even claim that they KNOW Him and have a relationship with him- are HOPING and TRUSTING that this Designer will ultimately show Himself and reveal that all this was made for US and that we are special, unique, cared for and loved. It would appear that we each see exactly what we want to see and nothing more. Evidence or no evidence, those who want to believe in nothing do, and those who want to believe in something or someone do. There either is or isn't a Creator. We might be compost and we might not. The real point is that if there is a Creator, it seems that He really only gives us what we want- To see or not to see.

I DID hear about that! I think that is really interesting, especially considering that, not even counting the fact that it brings up the case for human/dinosaur coexistence, it puts dinosaurs PRESENT on this planet in the last 25,000 years. That's gotta be devastating to evolutionary theory. Granted, I'm no expert on evolutionary theory. (I never really saw the point in becoming well-versed on a theory with as little scientific evidence to support it as evolution has. It would be like becoming an expert on the flat-earth theory that was held to be true for so long.) I think modern science gives itself a little too much credit in the wrong areas. I mean, we are looking for a "missing link" that will help prove that our great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents were apes and we can't even find a guy who is ALIVE and regularly makes VIDEO FOOTAGE of himself.

Actually, I care. And what religion is an Athiast? I've heard of ATHEISTS, but athiast is a new one. See you are religous Trav!

As I read somewhere else, the arguments ID proponents put forth DO have a valuable purpose...they are a catalyst for a lot of research that ends up showing how wrong they are. Al, I in no way intend to get really into any discussion about this, but I recently read a book called "The Case for Faith" by Lee Strobel. If you're truly an agnostic, I highly recommend that book. It will give you all the science you can handle, from some very reliable quoted sources, and it's a pretty good book, regardless of your stance on evolution. Obviously, it is written by a "believer" but it is written from his perspective both as an agnostic and as a believer. I'd be interested to hear the opinion of an agnostic reader versus the opinions of those of us who believe already. Have a great weekend!

Hey guys! I'm wanting to take my wife somewhere in the Ozarks for this white bass run I keep hearing about, but since I don't live down there and it's a 4 hour drive minimum, I want to make sure it's a good trip for her (and me). Plus, I don't know what the flood situation is in different areas, so maybe you guys can help me out here. Where would be the best place to go and rent a canoe or a jon boat and do some ultra-light/fly-fishing for whites, that isn't flooded and scary water, where the whites are known to be numerous, and when will be the optimum time to go? Is it NOW? Would the next couple of weeks be too late or early? Also, I see that everyone is talking about Beaver Creek down at Bull Shoals... I'd like to not drive all the way to Arkansas if possible. The closer to St. Louis the better, but I don't want to compromise good water and fishing. I appreciate your help and look forward to giving a great report!

Could somebody clear this up for me, por favor? Last year my wife and I floated a Beaver Creek in Missouri. We put in through a little outfitter about an hour southeast of Springfield. It was absolutely beautiful and we caught a boat-load of smallies and goggle-eye and a few largemouth. Had a gar scare the goodness out of me. It was a great trip. Not that any of that is relevant. Is this the same Beaver Creek everyone is talking about catching all these whites out of? I'd love to know, for future reference. Thanks!

Welcome to the forum! If you ever need someone from IL to go fishing with, feel free to ask!

Those stats are pretty amazing. And what a concept. Power in numbers... Imagine if some group were able to focus the spending and voting power of all those people for the good of the sport. I think there was an old post called "Whose Land is it?" that addresses that very idea. If only there was someone out there who had enough vision to begin uniting this vast demographic to tackle one cause at a time... Oh the possibilities...

Hey Trav, I'm just curious as to why you back McCain. If you don't mind educating me a little, I'd like to hear it on a different thread or a PM. I LOVE what he says about bin Laden and the war, I would just be interested to hear your reasoning. Thanks

I'm not very experienced at all at putting a boat in or taking out of a river, but in lakes, when your truck or van slips back on the ice to the water, it stops when you hit the water line because the water isn't frozen. Why would this not happen on a river? I don't understand how the whole car could slide past the water line. Anyone know the answer here?

If you're interested in high-level reciprocity for a CCW, you should definitely check out the Florida state non-resident CCW. It's got reciprocity in almost every state. Of course not in the fully retarded states like IL.

I don't know Jackdiddly about trout fishing, so I have no idea what you guys are saying those guys did, nor do I understand why it's bad. COuld you clue a bass fisherman in? Thanks.

Wow Al! Great post! I read an older post of your today on how to read river level graphs and found it extremely helpful! You are a tribute to fishing and I look forward to picking your brain more. However, you have made my choosing a stream a little difficult so I'll just watch the USGS graphs the week before we go and the weather forecast and make an educated guess. Thanks for your insight and great descriptions! Mike

Well, I will definitely try those things! Now I just have to find out what each one is and I'll be good to go! I'll let you know how I do. Thanks a bunch!

I couldn't seem to find anywhere to post this off-the-beaten-path question, so here it is. I'm sure there are people on here who currently live and fish in Southern Illinois who may know the answer to this or would benefit from its answer. I'm definitely one of them. It is supposed to warm up drastically this weekend and be 63 degrees on Monday. I am DYING to go fishing so I was thinking about going to Rend Lake on Monday to chase down some bass and crappie. Do you think the warm front will have a positive effect on the fishing or am I just going to enjoy some beautiful weather and a relaxing time? If it will be a positive, what method of fishing do you supposed will bring the best results? You guys are the best... thanks!

Thanks for that CW. Do you know how far each of those streams is from STL roughly? I do want to stay within a couple hours, but if those streams are ALL within a couple hours, I'll take my family to one and go to the rest myself!