Fearless Philosophy For Free Minds: Ritter Smears Beauprez for Supporting of the Fair Tax

The Bill Ritter (D) campaign has decided to smear Bob Beauprez (R) with a misleading ad about Beauprez’s support for the Fair Tax as part Ritter’s strategy to become Colorado’s next governor. If this ad proves effective, Beauprez and the rest of the Republican Congressional campaign are partially to blame. Even though the Fair Tax is supported by a number of Republicans, these same Republicans have failed to make the Fair Tax a central issue in this campaign. Because the Republican supporters of the Fair Tax have failed to educate the people (who has even heard of the Fair Tax outside of those who have found The Fair Tax Book in bookstores or listen to Neal Boortz on the radio), the door is left wide open for Democrat challengers such as Bill Ritter to make misleading claims about those who support the legislation. It will be very interesting to see how Fair Tax supporters such as Beauprez will respond in the coming days and weeks ahead.

For the benefit of those with a slow internet connection or cannot otherwise view the above video, the following is the script for Ritter’s attack ad:

Narrator: "What kind of ideas has Congressman Bob Beauprez picked up in Washington?"
"Beauprez pushed for a national sales tax of 23 percent on everything we buy including new homes, food, and medicine."
"He's proposed a 25 percent Colorado sales tax increase, and even supports unlimited tuition increases for college."
Bill Ritter: "The last thing we need to do is make it tougher for our kids to go to college, or families to buy a home."
"I'll keep the Colorado Promise of an economy that helps families and rewards hard work."

Notice anything Ritter left out? The first major thing I noticed is that he does not verbally mention any specific legislation Beauprez supported to in reference to any of these claims. The apparent hope is that most voters will take Ritter at his word and not look into these issues. To the ad’s credit, it does however make reference to “HR 25” in the bottom right of the screen. HR 25 is the Fair Tax.

While the claim that "Beauprez pushed for a national sales tax of 23 percent on everything we buy including new homes, food, and medicine" is accurate, it is very disingenuous. Nowhere in the ad does Ritter mention that the 23 percent sales tax would REPLACE the existing income tax, leaving unsuspecting voters to believe that the 23 percent tax would be in addition to the existing income tax. This is a very important detail and a lie of omission.

While it is true that the 23 percent tax would apply to homes, food, and medicine, a couple of other key facts Ritter conveniently left out was that the tax applies only to NEW purchases and that those who spend below the poverty line would pay ABSOLUTLY NO FEDERAL TAXES. Under the Fair Tax, a person could buy a used car, used home, or any other used items tax free. Taxes are only paid at the retail level for new purchases.

To suggest that the Fair Tax would harm ‘working families’ is a lie. How would the elimination of the federal income tax, the death (estate) tax, the gift tax, Social Security, Medicare, and the self employment tax possibly hurt families who struggle to make ends meet? Does Ritter really believe the government can better spend your money? Well, he is a Democrat; I think that answers my question.

Other Fair Tax related posts:
We Can Make April 15th Just Another Day
End Success-Based Taxation
What I Have Learned from Air America: Morning Sedition/Final Thoughts
Be sure to check out the Fair Tax Friday weekly blog carnival. This post was not completed in time for the deadline for this week but I have submitted for next week’s (10/20/06) consideration.