Naysayers railing against the FairTax become, ipso facto, defenders of the an INCOME TAX system. Prof. Larry Kotlikoff believes that the current tax system IS bringing the country to nothing less than an "economic meltdown (*)" by virtue of the invisibility of actual taxes paid. If Americans do not understand the true cost of their government, they're unlikely to hold Congress accountable - thus the enabling mechanism to continued profligate spending.

Even with the foregoing notwithstanding, do FairTax naysayers really believe:

• Workers love having their pay confiscated, hourly, through gov't withholding and don't mind getting their money back by involuntary servitude - to the tune of 50 hours/year (on average) - preparing an annual tax return?

• That certifying the number of persons in your family (annually, and, ancillarily, upon change in household) is an abrogation of our freedom - more intrusive and complex than filing a tax return every year subject to threats and intimidation by theIRS.

• It's better to have theIRS fishing through citizens' income transactions (complete with audits, interest, penalties, and threats against individuals, families, businesses as well as confiscation of their homes, property, and bank accounts) rather than - Gawd forbid - issuing a gov't check to an individual (while pretending that Social Security payments disbursement logistics really can't work for "prebates")?

• That an monthly advance tax rebate is the same thing as "being on the dole" ? (Only lobbyists, special interests, and business deserve "handouts" ? - the politician gets a payoff from a lobbyist, the lobbyist gets a payoff from its client, and the citizen gets higher taxes and/or prices that pay for it all.)

• "Hidden taxes" in higher prices are fine because they're not "taxes," per se? (Hey, forget that families are really paying business's costs for complying with a business income tax code - staff, consultants, submittals, etc.)

• It's far better to have a gargantuan tax collection "service" in Washington, than to have 50 decentralized, smaller, leaner state collection agencies collecting taxes from fewer sources?

• That the work by notable economists (paid tens of millions of $'s by Americans for Fair Taxation) doesn't carry weight because it was paid for by private funds instead of some gov't / quasi-gov't enterprise?

• That FairTax's backing by many economists (**) doesn't carry any weight because (the Brookings') Wm Gale's testimony before the President's Commission on Tax Reform is - somehow - above all that?!

(NOTE: The Commission/Gale made up their own "consumption tax" requirements, as if that constituted a legitimate rebuke of the FairTax plan. Dr. Kotlikoff has requested - but never received - Gale's technical "modus operandi" which would definitively explain just how Gale's conclusions can be reconciled with Kotlikoff's well-documented technical work (***).

America's working families are paid because the companies they work for sell goods and services. Let's pay for government the way America's families are paid - when something is sold. Let us work, together, to end the enslavement of the Tax Code and to restore Liberty to America's working families:

Huckabee worries Giuliani and Fred Thompson. Huckabee is for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and is also fo a constitional amendment banning abortion. Giuliani is the opposite. Giuliani is pushing the homosexual agenda and is in favor of abortion.

Fred Thompson, like Giuliani, is strongly against both an amendment banning gay marriage and an amendment banning abortion.

A wolf in sheep's clothing for the religious right.

So what if the other candidates are bankrolling ads against Huckabee? This is a presidential campaign. I do, however, agree with his statement about Thompson...what has this guy done that warrants the attention and support he is getting? He, like the rest of Republicans, is rife with contradictions and flaws. With any degree of scrutiny, people will realize he is not the savior of the Republican Party, or the country for that matter.