A Letter to Steve Forbes

Dear Mr. Forbes:

As a CPA tax guy, I’ve been following your “flat tax” proposals for several years, and have taken your simplification ideas a step further with my “10% on everything” idiot-proof, two-page tax code. This approach is discussed at length in fictional form in my new book An American Fable, and it is debated in Q&A format on my blog.

The advantages of a “10% on everything” tax code are:

• Yields total tax revenue of $3 trillion plus, versus about $2 trillion today from income taxes, fees, tolls, licenses, duties, bondings, payroll contributions, unemployment insurance, disability insurance, health insurance, excises, assessments, property taxes, et al, which would be eliminated (along with my modest post-retirement income from tax services to long-time clients);

• Is paid day-by-day;

• Is buried in retail prices, like the European VAT, but without VAT’s accounting complexities for small business owners like my Italian brother-in-law;

• Provides for a 60% share to cities and counties (10% to States), allowing a return to local rule over social services (healthcare, unemployment, disability) and local infrastructure (bridges, roads, buildings, tunnels, and schools);

• Gets Uncle Sam out of our daily lives. His 30% cut ($1 trillion) is to pay down our national debt; protect us against enemies, referee internal conformity, and give us a functioning bank system;
  
  
• We “local yokels” will take care of our schools, neighborhoods and townspeople—a return to Constitutional States’ rights after 150 years of Federal Caesarian command;

• Is front-end loaded, with no back-end tax on business profits, interest income, investment income, capital gains or pension T-bond withdrawals. Gets my 8 grandkids (and near-term great-grandkids) off the hook for paying off our $10 trillion national debt and $20 trillion Social Security/MediCare actuarial; shortfall.
  
  
• Promotes “low-class” Americans to “middle-class” Americans overnight, with a 25 grand minimum wage and a 10% T-bond retirement account.

Steve, I don’t care who gets credit for what; I just want to see a serious debate about simple taxation, local empowerment, and T-bond conversion of Federal pension benefits. There are 50 million senior voters out here who love our country, but hate the drift to Socialism. We need authoritative voices to speak for us; don’t let us down!

Yours very truly,

Charles Fairfax Speer

charliespeer.com

charlesspeer@yahoo.com (email)

A Letter to Governor Palin

Dear Governor Palin:

Thank you for your staff’s interest to learn more about my first book An American Fable, which contains proposals to confront and conquer some of America’s financial and social ills with a body of fresh thinking (some conservative; some liberal).

You’re still the gutsy gal I voted for last November, so don’t change a thing—Republicans need all the guts that can be mustered to overcome the slings and arrows of outrageous assaults on our American culture; which I judge to be the greatest in recorded history—better than the Persians, Greeks, Egyptians, Romans, Chinese, and Turks.

We are a great people who deserve great leaders in the mold of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Monroe, Jackson, Lincoln, Teddy R., FDR, Harry Truman, and Ronnie Reagan (my short list of visionary Presidents).

Yours very truly,

Charles Fairfax Speer

charliespeer.com

charlesspeer@yahoo.com (email)

More Q&A

Sue Morello, Des Moines, Iowa writes:

Q: As a teacher, I am highly offended by your comments, Mr. Speer. How dare you depict teachers, the ones who mold tomorrow's leaders, as Socialists. Shame on you. I am a Democrat and proud of it, you old fart! We work hard for every cent we earn and we are the backbone of this country. Don't ever forget that.

A: You missed my point entirely Sue, wherein I clearly blame Federal interference for the unacceptable high school dropout rate. If your town was using its own money exclusively, parental outrage would demand any and all methods be adopted to correct this sad state of affairs—union or no—on pain of dismissal. There would be no Federal rules. Uncle Sam has nothing to offer except money, and if you and I have the money we need, we don’t need Sam in order to teach our kids. Let’s tell him to stick to what we hired him for in 1787—protect us against enemies and give us a national banking system that works.

I see no problem with your being a “proud Democrat” (even I voted for Jack Kennedy), but let’s leave Socialist dogma and political correctness to the theoreticians, and keep these unproven viewpoints out of the classrooms. If teachers must preach, then preach the American heritage of “individuality” from Boston revolt to New Orleans jazz. Yes Sue, we do have “an American culture”, warts and all, and it’s greater than that of the Chinese, Persians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and Turks.

More Q&A

Jason from Memphis, TN writes:

Q: I think your ideas are great, if not a little unrealistic. As a fellow conservative, you have struck a few chords with me. I do have one question, however. What would happen with estate and inheritance taxes under your plan? And who did you vote for in the last Presidential election? If you say Obama you'll lose all credibility.

A: Jason, my 10% on everything\replacement of everything tax is exactly as advertised, and replaces all existing Federal, State, and Local taxes, assessments, fees, excises, tolls, licenses, bondings, import duties, property, estate, inheritance, gasoline, and every other form of dunning our wallets. It does it day-by-day, on pain of a 10% late penalty; freezing and eventual confiscation of assets; and 2 to 5 years of “soft” jail time. (The ‘bad guys’ are moved out to one of our unfenced Aleutian Island enclaves, to make room for white collar tax evaders, including those who compound their felony by hiring illegal aliens.)

Secondly, I haven’t voted Democrat since Jack Kennedy. Obama has all the tools for success, but is mired in failed Socialist central control philosophy, and thus unlikely to promote any measures to return schooling, infrastructure and social services to local rule. In his mind, we “local yokels” are a bunch of dummies, even though his “brain trust” has so far failed miserably in their responsibility to provide a working bank system—the collapse of which has cost us half of our 401(k) pension nest egg. But bitching and moaning serves no purpose without a comprehensive body of solutions, which I put forth in my writings.

More Q&A

George, a Wells Fargo loan officer in Denver asks:

Q: How would your so-called “10% on everything” tax affect banks and borrowers?

A: Competition for new loans would be fierce, keeping interest rates at rock bottom, because there is no tax on bank interest income. The front-end 10% tax to the borrower would be shared to some extent by Wells Fargo as a “loan acquisition cost”, and the remainder added to the borrower’s loan principal, to be paid off over the life of the loan.

For example, let’s say “Joe the Plumber”, walks into your office for a 500 grand loan to either expand his business, or buy a larger home for his expanding family. You’re an aggressive guy, so you offer to split the 50 grand tax bite 25/25, and give him a long-term (home) or short-term (business) loan at prime plus 1%--say 5%. You shake hands, and everybody goes home happy.

Uncle Sam is happy because he just made 15 grand (his 30% share); Denver City and County is happy, because they just made 30 grand (their 60% share); Joe is happy, because he has half-a-mil in cash to fund his business, or to buy his new 4-bedroom house, making his wife happy; you are happy, because you just made a 5 grand commission, making your wife happy; Wells Fargo is happy, because they will be making a net 2% profit after charging off the 25 grand loan acquisition cost and your 5 grand commission to current expense. Lastly, Wells Fargo stockholders are happy, because their investment is going gangbusters with no hidden surprises, bumping up their stock price and tax-free dividends.

More Q&A

Nellie, a Mass General nurse from Boston, asks:

Q: I don’t see why schools, medical, and social services should be administered by cities and towns rather than the Federal Government. Won’t this lead to inequities between rich areas and poor areas?

A: Perhaps in isolated cases, but our Constitution was not designed for Federal involvement in State and local matters, although we have certainly evolved that way—with some disastrous results. Our bedrock systems, Social Security and Medicare are both actuarially bankrupt, to the tune of about $20 trillion--double our entire national debt.

FEMA proved to be a sick joke in the aftermath of Katrina, with the 3 Stooges leading the Keystone Kops in a finger-pointing merry-go-round that the great Mack Sennet could well have scripted if he were still alive.

Our K-12 schools—that is, our country’s future—are controlled by Washington hand-outs and regulations, and taught by union-dominated teachers with a liberal Socialist bias that has led to a 50% high school drop-out rate. This is a national failure greater than the collapse of Wall Street.

I could go on, but there’s no point; we already see it in our daily lives. Rather than look to plausible corrective solutions, our leaders can only propose more of the same. This state of financial affairs is unacceptable. My proposed remedies are reflected in my books’ themes, wherein I propose concrete solutions, which is a helluva lot more than we have recently seen from either our political candidates, elected winners, or their collective "brain trusts". Nellie, all important National problems come down to money--how to create it and how to tax it.

Washington has continued to brush off concrete financial solutions with a shrug, and a “there’s no silver bullet” excuse. They are pathetic, and unworthy of our great people, especially in times of financial crisis.

My answer to continuing D.C. obfuscation is that we “local yokels” can and should be masters of our own fates. If we are to sink into Roman Empire oblivion, let it be by our own hands, and not by the hands of Pelosi and Obama, because they cannot begin to cope, armed as they are with a box of band aids to cure an American 21st century malady requiring major brain surgery, under a surgeon’s scalpel which must cut away the illusion that Washington can cure our ills. Obama and his Socialist buddies cannot.

They will fail miserably, not for lack of intelligence or oratory skill, but from lack of faith in our “individualist” American heritage. They are lost in a “Big Brother” sea that has been building for a century--The Perfect Storm that has now become a Washington hurricane crossing paths with my town's tornado.

In the final analysis, this responsibility falls to me, the guy next door, my neighbors, my neighborhood Councilperson, and my Mayor. If we can’t do it on our own, given a fair chance, then we are lost in mediocrity, pissing away our heritage.

Returning to Nellie’s question: You’re right, there would be inevitable inequities between Boston and Palm Beach, and between Detroit and Albuquerque. Such has America been conceived, and then built upon our Constitutional premises of State and local rule, with Federal overall protection, and Federal oversight of State uniformity in matters of commerce, citizenship, voting rights, and Congressional representation—that’s all there was at our one and only Constitutional Convention in 1787. There was no “Big Brother”—hell, there was only a bankrupt Continental Congress after 8 years of war against the mighty British Empire. Well, our financial guy, Alexander Hamilton, and his buddies had the "right stuff", and I judge we middle-class Americans have it today.

Apart from our Bill of Rights, abolition of slavery, and women's votes, there has been little else of great import added to this founding document that should, but unhappily doesn’t, rule our everyday lives, because D.C. has acted like Caesar, ever since Abe Lincoln, who by extreme necessity saved our Union by voiding States’ Rights. Well, that was a century and a half ago, and the time has come to get over what many Southerners have since referred to as “the late unpleasantness”, a genteel media spin, because we lost more men in our Civil War than in all of our other wars combined.

Nellie, rest assured that your City and County’s 60% share of the $10 billion per day revenue pie will be adequate to take care of your local medical, unemployment, and disability needs, with something left over for a rainy day. Look forward to your future family, and don’t fret about Palm Beach’s ability to afford free Muni transportation with their gambling and prostitution emporiums’ hefty tax income—you and your townspeople can vote on this moral issue each November.

And don’t worry about poor Detroit. Our cheap gas will fuel these repentant carmakers back to wiser management and a 70% market share. We Americans prefer the big safe cars they build. We will give Americans what they want, at a price that is unbeatable by the Japanese, Europeans, Koreans, or anyone else, whose gas is taxed at 2 bucks per liter, because they have no petroleum, while we have a cumulative 200 billion barrels--enough for 100 years once we wake up and decide to drill, pump, and refine to the max. By that time we’ll have every alternative power source we need, but not now, in the midst of an economic meltdown that has freaked us out.

We will emerge stronger than ever, because this is our God-given destiny, as long as we maintain the moral strength to lead our planet by good example, which does not include Obaman Socialism.

Detroit will bounce back, along with the rest of American industry. Gone would be family dependence on Washington-mandated social behavior, replaced by the townsfolk sagacity that Bostonians exhibited in 1775. Nothing has changed in more than 2 centuries—we Americans want to rule our daily lives—for better or for worse—that’s all we ask from any government, Democrat or Republican.

This concept has been lost somewhere along the way, and we must rediscover it to survive in a 21st century as tumultuous as the 20th, which gave rise to two World Wars and a 50-year Cold War.

My message should be clear--we were founded on the premise that we are individually responsible for our actions and our fates. But we have misplaced this basic truism, so we must now renew ourselves, or become lost in a sea of Socialism that will eventually destroy our independent souls.

So Nellie, find your soul mate, embrace him, and make American babies. We Americans will back you up when “Constitutional patriots” regain command of our national vision, which I view as a 21st century inevitability. Vote out the naysayer Socialists who pretend to rob us of our American culture—from Bunker Hill to New Orleans Jazz. Let’s vote out any bastard who tries to block our quest for the American heritage of "individuality"--it's our strongest suit, and unbeatable when we put our minds to it, as we did in WWII and the Cold War.

More Q & A

Simone, a chef from San Francisco, asks:

Q: Your “10% on everything” tax looks a lot like a purchase tax, so why don’t you just call it that? And why 10%; and not some higher percentage with certain exclusions, such as purchase of a home, which my fiancè and I are planning?

A: Because there are too many non-purchase type transactions encompassed in my “replacement tax”—gifts, charitable contributions, loans, inheritances, trades and swaps, just to name a few, which in my view would lead to tax abuse in the hands of lawyers skillful in the art of “restructuring” one thing for another—a loan as a gift, a trade as a loan, a purchase as a swap, a farm or business inheritance as a long-term lease, and so forth.

When it comes to taxes of any kind, simple is best, and taxing on overall consumption and asset transfers is about as fair as it gets; and paying day-to -day beats the hell out of paying year-to-year, especially when the total tax bite is an aggregate 50% more than now, because 50 million new middle class Americans will be paying “income tax” for the first time.

We can all go to sleep at night knowing that we don’t owe the taxman a damn thing—what’s ours is ours, including any income or capital gains from our investments, or profits from our businesses. Believe me, sooner or later all the money will be taxed when spent, invested or inherited.

Why a comprehensive 10%? Because no one will risk 2 to 5 years jail time for a measly 10%! And because any exclusions would inevitably lead to the politically-motivated, obscene 70,000-page tax code that we have today, which costs us $200 billion a year just to administer-all money down a rat hole! Most importantly, 10% gives our various levels of government the $3 trillion plus they need to run things like locally-administered social services, and to start paying down our debt. Uncle Sam should just get out of our way, and try to do something our Constitution gives him a mandate to do—like re-structuring our banking system so we can get on with our normal lives. We don't want another trillion dollars of Socialist hand-outs, nor much less a nationalized mediocre medical system.

Our local doctors are doing just fine, and can do even better under a local administration that provides for a 100 buck house call for a 10 buck tax bite. This is the medical care we want, and we'll pay for it right here in "Hicksville, USA".

We are, and always have been, perfectly capable of deciding what our kids are taught; what buildings, roads, and bridges should be built; what our farmers plant and reap; what cars we drive; and how we take care of our sick, disabled, or temporarily unemployed townsfolks.

Bottom line, Sam, you stick to what we hired you to do in 1787-protect us from foreign and domestic enemies, and provide us with a working bank system and a return to States' Rights. We'll take it from there-just move over and give us our turn at bat. You'll be surprised by the Mickey Mantle's and Ted Williams' we have on deck.

More Q&A

Eric, a stockbroker from New York, asks:

Q: Why does your 10% tax include stock and bond transactions? I’ve barely survived the financial meltdown, and this would be a killer for day-trading and foreign investments.

A: You’re right, Eric. My proposed 2-page “idiot-proof” tax code does not distinguish between a loaf of bread and a share of stock, and day-trading is “toast”. But long-term investors make out like bandits because there is no tax on investment income, capital gains, or business profits, from G.E. to “mom and pop”.

Tell your Wall Street buddies that we are on the threshold of the greatest American investment boom since “Wild West” days, and tell your foreign buddies that if they want a piece of the American pie, they’ll have to pay 10% up front for the privilege.

Eric, you must be a bright guy or you wouldn’t have survived the meltdown, and I’m dismayed that you haven’t figured this out on your own. The 10% transaction tax is the same for everything and everybody—no exceptions. No tax scheme could be more “American”. If, as you claim, it is unfair, then it is equally unfair for all of us, not the "social engineering" nightmare we now have, which screws some folks and not others, depending on the ability to afford a $400 per hour tax attorney or CPA.

The result of my proposals is that we can pay off our National Debt in the next 10 years with the built-in surplus; and my 8 grandkids will be off the hook for financial excesses the past 50 years, including the recent Wall Street bailouts and economic stimulus packages.

What my vision means in a global economy is that the dollar will to rise to the level of 2 Euros, 1 pound sterling, and 200 yen. American dollar buying power will dwarf every other, as it did after WWII, keeping our internal inflation at 2% or less.

More Q&A
Flo, a 70-year-old retired widow from Cape Coral Florida asks:

Q: Does the “10% on everything” tax replace my $7,000 property tax and 7% sales tax? If so, how can my nearly bankrupt town pay for everything, including my medical bills? And what about my Social Security checks?

A: Yes, Flo, everything is paid for by Cape Coral’s 40% share, and Lee County’s 20% share of the daily tax bite, with Florida’s 10% share as a backup for hurricane emergencies, and to pay down State bonds after covering their admin costs.

Uncle Sam’s 30% share—about $1 trillion, including a billion a day in net National Lottery proceeds to pay down debt, is ample when there are no State and local drains for stuff our Federal Uncle has no business being in in the first place--our schools; our parks; our arts; our buildings; our roads, bridges, and tunnels; our windmills and solar panels; our TV and radio programs; and our social services. These matters belong to us, not to him.

Uncle Sam is charged with taking care of our country as a whole, while we are charged with taking care of our neighbors and townspeople: You know, that revolutionary idea our Forefathers invented when we kicked out the Brits in 1783? But we need $3 trillion per year to make it happen, and not the $2 trillion we now get at all levels of government from taxes, tolls, duties, fees-ad infinitum it seems. They would all be gone with the wind, like the Old South and Ellis Island, now that all the slaves, and half the 20 million illegals, have been freed or repatriated.

With respect to your monthly Social Security check, your account will be re-valued back to 1936, as will your departed husband’s account. The amounts you, he and your employers paid in for the past 73 years, less the checks and Medicare co-payments you both received the past few years, will be deposited tax-free, with accumulated interest at whatever 30-year T-Bond quarterly rate was in effect during these periods, including financially clueless Jimmy Carter's 18% rate.

Flo, it will be quite a pot full, but don’t go "ape". Try to live for a while off your monthly interest check before drawing out principal. What you leave behind will go to your kids when you’re reunited with your husband. In the meantime, your medical needs will be monitored by your local Councilman, who is being paid 300 grand a year to make sure that you and your neighbors are cared for properly.

More Q&A

Gino, the owner of an Italian restaurant in Chicago, asks:

Q: How do you figure that any small businessman like me can afford to pay the 12 buck/25 grand minimum wage, plus 10% labor tax and 10% pension contribution for a dishwasher, floor sweeper, or burger-flipper? Doesn’t your “trickle-up” theory put the burden on the backs of the little guys like me? These are hard times, and my business is down 40%.

A: Gino, you have to look at the short- and medium-term savings you get, such as no Chicago or Cook County license fees or taxes; no worker insurance; no property tax on that building you own; no tax on your restaurant profits; no tax on your investments; no duties on your imported food from Italy; cheap gas for your catering trucks; and cheap produce prices from bumper farm crops planted by farmers free of mandates and subsidies, and clever enough to supply half the world with cheap food.

Very soon, I think you’ll find that these savings will balance out your increased minimum labor costs, and that your employees will be able to afford a home of their own. This comprehensive tax-pension- trickle-up plan is admittedly a delicate Mozart concerto, and a national leap of faith, but this is the stuff we Americans are made of.

All you and I have ever asked for is a level playing field, without “Big Brother’s” Socialist rules of the game. We didn't hire Uncle Sam for anything but protection from enemies, and as referee of internal disparities. Somehow, during and after the Civil War, this concept was abandoned, and it now falls to us to re-establish it with 21st Century solutions, the cornerstone of which is State and Local rule based upon tax revenue sharing--40% town, 20% county, 10% State, and 30% Federal--roughly $2 trillion to us, and $1 trillion to Uncle Sam, with us collecting all the money day-by-day, and dishing it out to Uncle Sam, not the other way around.

Revolutionary? I suppose it is, but we Americans have always been revolutionaries--innovators; visionaries; frontiersmen; gamblers; jazzmen; and the saviors of European Civilization.

Press Release

PRESS RELEASE

Contact Ed Attanasio

(415) 994-5535

August, 2009

Pacific Heights Retiree Proposes Financial/Social "Peaceful Revolution" with First Book, An American Fable

In this upscale neighborhood of San Francisco, Charlie Speer, a 73-year-old retired CPA, spends his days writing his fictional philosophy, and maintaining his blog, www.fablesbycharlesfairfaxspeer.blogspot.com.

The "rebel" author started writing at age 70, and loves the challenge of his fourth career. "It keeps me active and out of trouble," Speer stated candidly. "I've always had a passion for writing, which before retirement was limited to corporate reports. So, I wondered what it would be like to attempt 'A Great American Novel'," Speer explained. "I started an outline and began writing three years ago, but I quickly found that one book would not suffice to explain my take on life to my three grown kids and eight grandkids (two in college); my 'Last Hurrah', if you're a Spencer Tracy fan."

Speer's first novel, published last month, is titled An American Fable. It takes place before, during and after the 2008 Presidential race between his winning fictional conservative Democrat Matt Ramsey and real-life Republican John McCain. The story tells of the social and economic effects of a new "10% on everything/replacement of everything" tax system; a new T-bond pension system; a new "trickle-up" 5 grand minimum wage economic system; a return to States' rights; and the adoption of an audacious Pax Americana foreign policy.

His second novel, An Italian Fable, is due to hit online book-selling websites next month, and takes place before, during and after World War II, when Speer's fictional hero Mark O'Brien, a volunteer OSS spy, meets with real-life figures Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Pope Pius XII before switching places with his look-alike cousin, the Vatican's Irish Monsignor Tom Shaw, just before the war. After the war, FDR makes O'Brien Commander-in-Chief, Allied Forces, Italy, where he begins a five-year fictional partnership with real-life post-war Italian Prime Minister, Alcide DeGasper.

Speer is currently working on his third novel, CIA Fables, to be published late this year, via traditional distribution channels, thus completing his Fables Trilogy.

Charlie Speer was born in Manhattan in 1936, graduated from M.I.T. in 1957 (Business and Engineering), and completed his Naval service in Naples, Italy in 1961. He then lived in Milan for the next decade while completing his family and working as a management consultant (and part-time CIA spy?) during the industrial "Italian Miracle" of the 1960's.

He returned to Southern California with his family in 1971, bought a small electronics company; got torpedoed by predatory Japanese "price dumping"; obtained his CPA certificate in 1978, and operated as a sole practitioner and part-time CFO for hi-tech start-up companies until his retirement in 2006.

Speer left San Francisco in 2006 for a year in his beloved Italy to begin writing An Italian Fable in the small town of Greve in Chianti, deep in the heart of Tuscany. "I rented this six-bedroom hilltop vlla and invited all my Italian friends and close family for fun, food and some Italian sun," Speer said.

When he returned to San Francisco from Chianti, Speer began An American Fable. "I decided to tackle the tough job of transposing my post-war Italian theme to modern-day America," he explained.

What does the future hold for this white-haired, jaw-line bearded, thin upper lip mustachioed first-time author? Speer was quick to respond. "I'm getting ready for book signings; completing my CIA Fables; and I'll start writing short stories about my Rebel/Yankee heritage for my great grandkids just around the corner." Speer then gave his wrap. "My days are dwindling down to a precious few, the leaves have long since turned to flame - and I haven't got time for the waiting game."