You Decide

August 12, 2005

 Why now? Because a definitive new book called "The FairTax Book" has hit the bookstores. Its authors are Neal Boortz, who may be the most articulate radio talk show host in America, and Rep. John Linder, a high-ranking Republican congressman from Georgia.

 Just as projected, the book already has soared to the top of Amazon.com's rankings. It's stirring up debate -- and support -- across the country.

 First, a look at the authors. Boortz isn't just another talking head who's written a book. Years ago in Atlanta, he doubled as a successful attorney and local talk radio host. He now enjoys national syndication of his morning show.

 I challenge readers who live in cities that carry his program to tune in. They'll quickly find Boortz less predictable and more intellectually challenging than many talk radio icons.

 Linder is a serious, studious man who has dedicated his life to public service. A dentist by training, he became a successful businessman while serving for years in the Georgia legislature and later in Congress.

 The pedigree of the authors alone virtually ensures success for "The FairTax Book." Before its shelf life is up, perhaps the public's reaction to the book will trigger something big -- a truly innovative policy idea getting serious consideration in Congress.

 That won't happen easily. Understanding the FairTax takes not only a mind, but an open one at that -- all the more reason to have Boortz and Linder spell things out and get the meaty discussions going.

 I can hardly do justice to the FairTax argument in this limited space, but here's an attempt at a quick summary:

 The FairTax would eliminate the federal income tax and the IRS along with it. Concurrently, it would establish a national sales tax on retail consumption.

 It would eliminate the current crazy quilt of indecipherable tax code regulations that bogs down businesses and befuddles families.

 It would make each of us the master of our own financial destinies. If you want to spend your money, that road is wide open to you with the FairTax. You'll certainly have more take-home pay.

 If you want to save instead, you won't be penalized for having rightfully earned your money in the first place.

Readers can learn far more by picking up a copy of the book.

Meanwhile, my job as a columnist is to interpret public opinion and gauge its effect on government policies. What impact might the FairTax book and the FairTax debate have on Congress and President Bush?

 Republicans and just about everybody else in the Washington establishment have been scared to touch this proposal in the past. The reason is simply that most of them are afraid of radical change of any sort.

 After all, there are plenty of big government bureaucracies as well as law and accounting firms that potentially could be wiped out by a fundamental simplification of the revenue system.

 Another impediment will be those who view a fair tax as some sort of right-wing attack on the nation's middle class and the poor. 

 But the book and its concept have arrived at a perfect time. The Republican-led Congress is viewed right now as having few, if any, new ideas. The president is taking a five-week vacation while Iraq simmers closer to a boiling point.

 I've witnessed and even been a modest player in some of those rare moments when a set of key political players seized on the nation's sense of frustration and turned it into a gain.

The effort I participated in was led by a man named Newt Gingrich, and it was called the "Contract with America." Much of what Gingrich and his pals passed in the spring of 1995 had at one time been viewed as radical, too.

 Already critics of the FairTax are using sleight-of-hand tactics to shoot it down before it takes off. To confuse the public, they are using artificially low rates under the current tax system and comparing them favorably to the FairTax. 

 Doomsday scenarios to frighten those with lower incomes are another anti-FairTax move, even though the FairTax would provide rebates to families with modest incomes.

 We've yet to fully poll this issue because first it needs to get some much-deserved attention. But let me assure both Republicans and Democrats that once these red herrings are put aside and the public understands the FairTax, the train will be pulling out of the station. Our elected leaders can either be on it or get run over by it.

 In the meantime, watch as my prediction made months ago about the Boortz-Linder book comes to fruition.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/matttowery/mt20050812.shtml

Sometimes the truth is just too simple.... 

Global warming has finally been explained: the Earth is getting hotter because the Sun is burning more brightly than at any time during the past 1,000 years, according to new research.

A study by Swiss and German scientists suggests that increasing radiation from the sun is responsible for recent global climate changes.

Dr Sami Solanki, the director of the renowned Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Gottingen, Germany, who led the research, said: "The Sun has been at its strongest over the past 60 years and may now be affecting global temperatures.

"The Sun is in a changed state. It is brighter than it was a few hundred years ago and this brightening started relatively recently - in the last 100 to 150 years."

Dr Solanki said that the brighter Sun and higher levels of "greenhouse gases", such as carbon dioxide, both contributed to the change in the Earth's temperature but it was impossible to say which had the greater impact.

Average global temperatures have increased by about 0.2 deg Celsius over the past 20 years and are widely believed to be responsible for new extremes in weather patterns. After pressure from environmentalists, politicians agreed the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, promising to limit greenhouse gas emissions between 2008 and 2012. Britain ratified the protocol in 2002 and said it would cut emissions by 12.5 per cent from 1990 levels.

Globally, 1997, 1998 and 2002 were the hottest years since worldwide weather records were first collated in 1860.

Most scientists agree that greenhouse gases from fossil fuels have contributed to the warming of the planet in the past few decades but have questioned whether a brighter Sun is also responsible for rising temperatures.

To determine the Sun's role in global warming, Dr Solanki's research team measured magnetic zones on the Sun's surface known as sunspots, which are believed to intensify the Sun's energy output.

The team studied sunspot data going back several hundred years. They found that a dearth of sunspots signalled a cold period - which could last up to 50 years - but that over the past century their numbers had increased as the Earth's climate grew steadily warmer. The scientists also compared data from ice samples collected during an expedition to Greenland in 1991. The most recent samples contained the lowest recorded levels of beryllium 10 for more than 1,000 years. Beryllium 10 is a particle created by cosmic rays that decreases in the Earth's atmosphere as the magnetic energy from the Sun increases. Scientists can currently trace beryllium 10 levels back 1,150 years.

Dr Solanki does not know what is causing the Sun to burn brighter now or how long this cycle would last.

He says that the increased solar brightness over the past 20 years has not been enough to cause the observed climate changes but believes that the impact of more intense sunshine on the ozone layer and on cloud cover could be affecting the climate more than the sunlight itself.

Dr Bill Burrows, a climatologist and a member of the Royal Meteorological Society, welcomed Dr Solanki's research. "While the established view remains that the sun cannot be responsible for all the climate changes we have seen in the past 50 years or so, this study is certainly significant," he said.

"It shows that there is enough happening on the solar front to merit further research. Perhaps we are devoting too many resources to correcting human effects on the climate without being sure that we are the major contributor."

Dr David Viner, the senior research scientist at the University of East Anglia's climatic research unit, said the research showed that the sun did have an effect on global warming.

He added, however, that the study also showed that over the past 20 years the number of sunspots had remained roughly constant, while the Earth's temperature had continued to increase.

This suggested that over the past 20 years, human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation had begun to dominate "the natural factors involved in climate change", he said.

Dr Gareth Jones, a climate researcher at the Met Office, said that Dr Solanki's findings were inconclusive because the study had not incorporated other potential climate change factors.

"The Sun's radiance may well have an impact on climate change but it needs to be looked at in conjunction with other factors such as greenhouse gases, sulphate aerosols and volcano activity," he said. The research adds weight to the views of David Bellamy, the conservationist. "Global warming - at least the modern nightmare version - is a myth," he said. "I am sure of it and so are a growing number of scientists. But what is really worrying is that the world's politicians and policy-makers are not.

"Instead, they have an unshakeable faith in what has, unfortunately, become one of the central credos of the environmental movement: humans burn fossil fuels, which release increased levels of carbon dioxide - the principal so-called greenhouse gas - into the atmosphere, causing the atmosphere to heat up. They say this is global warming: I say this is poppycock."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/07/18/wsun18.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/07/18/ixnewstop.html