-Fairedistributionofyr$

I turned on the radio as I pulled away from the curb after dropping Sheryl at work. A commercial on our local AM talk radio WDBO informed me of the gathering of Americans in favor of the "Fair Tax". I'd heard a brief mention on the radio days before, and until the ad this morning, I thought it had come and gone without my participation.

With only about a half hour to spare, I went home, ate cereal, grabbed a camera and drove downtown. I'm not much good at estimating crowd size--if parking availability is a reliable indicator, I came to understand this event was something of a big deal. After circling the bar district and Church street, past the motorcycle cops and orange barriers, with no luck, I paid my 5 bucks and drove into a parking garage within earshot of the amplified voices.

Since WDBO is home of the ever-partisan Sean Hannity here in the city, the profusion of "W" stickers, yellow ribbons and "position" bumper stickers on the cars in the garage was to be expected. The station hosted the rally, and also made possible the presence and participation of libertarian talk-show host Neal Boortz. As I visited his site to get the link, I learned of the estimated attendance: 10-12,000.

That's Neal Boortz there on stage, red shirt, and that's about as close as I got. I tried to push in closer, but it was damn hot, we were a sweaty bunch of tax protesters, and I was not so eager to wade in deep. Boortz commented that any person willing to brave the heat of the day should be more than ready to show up at the polls and make it count. It was in the 90's, easily.

There was some echo off the buildings, no matter which area I wandered into. The only other comment I tuned in on and took away from the day was Boortz's idea that critics of the Fair Tax typically pick apart the plan only after first changing it. His analogy was to performance results for a car: the manufacturer tunes and prepares the car, and runs it as a complete, ready-to-be-purchased unit. If a critic first removes a wheel before testing, results will surely vary.

Without a far more extensive knowledge of economics and government than I have, there is no real way for me to judge the validity of the Fair Tax proposal. It sounds damn good, though. Suffice it to say that the resources and crowds involved in what I saw today do demonstrate that something's happening here. We should pay attention.

Put simply, from fairtax.org: The FairTax replaces the income tax and all other federal taxes with a national consumption tax. The FairTax is levied only once, at the point of purchase on new goods and services. The simplicity of the FairTax frees Americans from our current overwhelming tax code and unshackles the U.S. economy. [My emphasis]

I left soon after Neal Boortz spoke, having seen all I'd come to see, victim of the heat and poor acoustics. The voice of John Linder, Georgia congressman and a sponsor of H.R. 25, was dopplering off the buildings as I walked to the car. I scored a t-shirt, lots of literature and two DVDs from booths run by volunteers from fairtax.org. They were requesting donations for their goods. I'll admit I only feigned a donation to obtain my swag, my hand hovering with a bill as I called out, "large, please". It's the thought that counts--besides, I saw folks stuffing twenties in the fish-bowl. They can take mine out of that.

One of the discs I came home with did not come from the fair tax folks. The man with the sign (below) gave it to me. His backpack of tricks was stuffed with discs full of cutting edge conspiracy theory--his sign says it all: 9/11 was an inside job. In the time it took to take his picture, return my camera to the case and accept a disc, I heard him spar verbally, loudly, with two different people--"just trying to get the truth out there, man". Mmmmkay.
The rest of the crowd stayed on topic. Lots of themed t-shirts, magic-markered
poster-board signs and the wardrobes, haircuts, shoes and demeanor of solid middle class-dom. The faces were overwhelmingly european-american. (Pretty much exclusively so--I saw only two people with brown skin, and they were canvassing for some candidate, not the fair tax--I couldn't pull off an unobtrusive photo-op).

This was a solid, well-behaved group who came prepared with water bottles, folding chairs, fans and umbrellas--lots of families with kids. They were there to show support and feel the strength of their numbers. I'm unsure who the signs were for--they've all got the message already, but most such rallies suffer in that way. No one was going to learn much, but learning is not really what today was for.

I'll be voting, too, in a few months, as will you, if you are not disillusiuoned enough by the process to have given up. I'll be looking for candidates who support the fair tax initiative. Who can be sure if those 10 to 12, 000 votes will matter much. But as with my vote(s) for Ross Perot, I want at least to spend any upcoming votes in a disruptive, hopeful way. I guess I haven't completely given up.