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Marion, Lake, and Sumter Tri-County News
Dateline: 6/26/2010
Marion, Lake, and Sumter Tri-County News
Great news! Did you know the FairTax is very environmentally
friendly? It's a fact. The FairTax puts an end to the needless
cumbersome paperwork required by our federal and state income taxes.
Save the trees! Cut our individual reporting costs. A win-win
situation.
How
is the FairTax movement coming along? Are our leaders and volunteers
still working to get the FairTax word out? You bet! The campaign goal
remains to educate all citizens and also our representatives about the
FairTax. We need to reach everyone about the FairTax.
FairTax
legislation is on the move! In Congress U.S. House Representative,
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, not even a co-sponsor of HR 25, addressed the
house to demand a fair hearing for the FairTax from the House Ways and
Means Committee. A leading economist Art Laffer addressed the tax
policy committee of the Missouri Senate.
In Indiana primaries, every
candidate who ran on a FairTax platform won his/her respective race.
In Ohio, 8 of 18 candidates have come out in favor of the FairTax -
both as a state and a national issue. Ohio has introduced a FairTax
Bill in its legislature. In North Carolina, virtually every race in
the state has a FairTax candidate running. In Michigan, gubernatorial
candidates are talking favorably of the MI FairTax. A significant
number of Michigan Senate and House candidates are running on the MI
FairTax issue.
Here's something important that resembles what's
being done in Florida: The Michigan FairTax is assigning liaisons to
Michigan candidates to help answer their questions.
This is especially important as we're looking ahead to the November elections.
We've
read that misleading information about the FairTax is being used to
scare citizens. This tactic has been used before. We knew it would
come to this. Now we see the value of volunteers' work. Speak the
truth, spread the FairTax word ... and so many of us do that in so many
ways.
During May, Community Coordinators held meetings and made
presentations to groups. Volunteers wrote letters to the editor.
Elaine Maiellaro wrote a piece "I love America but it's getting
harder." It was published in two local papers. It's also being
circulated via forwarded emails by Elaine's friend. How far will it
spread? It ought to touch the hearts of Americans and move them to do
volunteer work.
Our volunteers were able to watch a U-tube video
of a House Representative speaking live on C-span about the benefits of
the FairTax. Volunteer Jan Gaines made the time to call U.S. House
Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (202-225-3931) and say "Thank you
for endorsing the FairTax." Then Jan shared the information with her
email contacts so that they could do the same. It's important to let
the representative know that there are FairTax supporters out there who
will stand up to correct the distortions.
Marion County
Co-Community Coordinators Ron and Elaine Maiellaro, held meetings at
the Howard Johnson Inn and the Marion County Public Library.
They
made a special presentation to the Silver Springs Shores Republican
Party on 5/19. At first, Ron and Elaine were told that the block of
time allotted to them was ten minutes. The 10-minute segment turned
into 30 minutes due to sincere, serious interest on the part of those
who attended. Ron sent an email expressing appreciation for the
opportunity. He offered a follow-up visit for more opportunity to
discuss what the FairTax is and what can be done to help.
Ron
often calls WSKY radio talk show host Bob Rose. That has earned him the
name "FairTax Ron". Ron makes the opportunity to announce his
meetings. Sometimes he is able to engage Bob in a discussion about the
progress and benefits of the FairTax. Bob Rose is a strong and very
knowledgeable proponent of the FairTax.
A.J. O'Leary has come on
board to give presentations of the FairTax. A.J. has a nice setup with
his laptop and projector. The audience can view the power point
presentation on a large screen. We're glad that he has stepped up to
the plate at the Marion County Public Library.
A few months
ago, the national group had a list of possible activities in which
volunteers across the country could engage. Among them was a national
writing campaign to representatives.
Florida FairTaxers from
several counties have independently been sending postcards. It was
purely voluntary with no tracking method of how many were participating.
Bob
Mathews, our Dunnellon Co-Community Coordinator, believes that sending
postcards en masse is important. Along with his talented daughter, Bob
developed the website http://www.fairtaxpostcards.org.
Simple, easy, effective. The postcards you need to send out come to
your house ready to mail once you sign them. Your cards will have your
return address and your representative's mailing address on one side.
On the other is text appropriate for co-sponsors and those not yet
co-sponsors. Just sign the 4 cards, separate them, and mail them to
arrive on the 1st and 3rd Mondays of each month. Go to http://www.fairtaxpostcards.org and see what the national postcard campaign is all about.
Jane
Craig is doing it! Jane has purchased her postcards. Then she sent out
an email to her family and friends encouraging them to join in. Here's
the terrific opening statement in her email: For those of you who know
and understand the importance of the FairTax and want to participate in
a national campaign, please take note: Instructions for the National
Postcard Program makes it so easy for you. It saves time and money.
Jane even attached a copy of the FairTax pocket card, front and back
for recipients to download!
Barb Putnam also writes her U.S. and State representatives.
Nick
and Barb Rudelic were at the DeBary FairTax meeting in Orange City.
The group wanted to hear about the new postcard campaign. Just before
the meeting began, Barb received a phone call from Belinda Skelton,
producer of the Neal Boortz radio show. Earlier Belinda had received
some introduction material about the postcard program. Now Belinda
wanted to know how they could be of help. Nick and Barb are working
with Bob Mathews to submit a package along with several simple
requests. We'll let you all know what transpires. You've got to know
how excited we are to be in touch with Belinda and the TalkMaster.
Nick
Rudelic sent FairTax information in 30 business return envelopes. Ruth
Lelle was disappointed that she received only 10 solicitations with
pre-stamped return envelopes. Ruth, everything you do helps get the
FairTax noticed! Thanks for taking the time to spread the word.
Meetings
are held monthly in Lake County. Dick Shaughnessy, Sue Hooper and Jay
Porter do a great job teaching the FairTax basics.
Dick uses a
laptop + projector setup. At each meeting Dick focuses on a special
topic after presenting the basics. At the May meeting Kerry Bowers and
his wife from the Panhandle area were guests. Kerry brought his
FairTax bill printout. When questions came up, Kerry did explain
several of them thoroughly. Kerry has been involved in conducting
several of the webinair training sessions offered through the Florida
FairTax Educational Association.
At Sue's last meeting in
Eustis, there were several speakers for candidates. This allows us to
learn about the platforms. Without hesitation the speakers said that
their candidates supported the FairTax. This is becoming a common
occurrence.
Jay Porter still holds a monthly FairTax meeting at
the Perkins Restaurant in Clermont. He also has a table set-up for
information and FairTax gear at the monthly South Lake Tea Party
meeting.
Rick Norton conducted meetings in The Villages twice
during the month. John DeLuca gave a presentation to the WWII Airborne
group. New supporters joined by sharing their information.
Bob
Mathews and Leigh Milne held their meeting at the Dunnellon Library.
"Stop the Insanity" is one of their mantras. Both of them are business
people and feel the constraints the federal income tax code and IRS put
on the growth of their businesses.
Ron and Elaine Maiellaro
had their meeting at the Belleview Library. They work well as a team.
Ron educates about the history of the current income tax code and moves
into the FairTax. It is simple, easy, fair, transparent....and let's
not forget the prebate. It's more than just about the money....it's
about freedom from manipulation by the government through the tax code.
Nick
and Barb Rudelic held a meeting at The Villages Sumter Library. As far
back as 3 years ago, people living outside The Villages attended
meetings at Panera, Cebert Wealth and the library. They became strong
supporters and volunteers. It is important that they have a way to
keep in touch and remain active. The next meeting there will be in
July.
For the schedule of meetings throughout Marion, Lake and Sumter counties, check the calendar by visiting the site: http://www.flfairtax.org.
Consider joining . Dues and donations are tax deductible. You'll
receive a monthly financial report of how the funds are used. More
than ever we must be able to counter misinformation about the FairTax.
Candidates who support the FairTax are vulnerable to attacks of wanting
to increase all prices by 23%. Funds will be used for ads to counter
such false claims.
Check out the Florida FairTax store. This is
the time to push the FairTax with yard signs, window signs in offices,
hats, shirts, buttons, coffee mugs. We must provide visibility for the
FairTax!
Visit http://www.flfairtax.org. See what's available.
If
you're involved in volunteer work, please let us know. If you have
some ideas to share, email them to us. If you learn of any events in
your local area, contact us. It would be great to have a FairTax
presence there. At a time when our economy is not recovering, the
FairTax would bring jobs, jobs, jobs!
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