Independence from Modern Tyranny

“All men are created equal... endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.”

Americans have a great heritage of rebellion to tyranny. It's ingrained in our culture. Every year on Independence Day we remind our children of the sacrifices that were made for our liberty.

Our Founding Fathers rebelled against an out-of-control government after a long train of abuses and usurpations – a government not unlike our modern central government.

Today, executive power abuses have become standard operating procedure. Warrantless wiretapping, suspension of habeas corpus, “enhanced interrogation” (if it's not torture, why don't our police departments do it?), the list goes on and on. One administration does it to foreigners, the next does it to Americans - even claiming the authority to assassinate U.S. citizens.

This may be shocking to those who don't follow politics closely, but every day Washington D.C. acts more and more like the barbaric government we declared our independence from 234 years ago.

The Democrats' solution to federal abuses of power was a “change” in politicians. Nothing changed except the rate of government growth. The federal government continues taking over huge segments of the economy, usurping more and more powers that were originally reserved for the states, massively expanding health and welfare programs when we can't even meet previous obligations, enriching special interest cronies with taxpayer money, indebting future generations to incomprehensible levels, failing to protect our borders, and on and on and on!

Many Republicans not only want to change politicians, but they also want to provide new guards for our future security. The 2010 Idaho Republican Party State Convention last weekend was filled with ideas for restoring the timeless principles behind the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution. Unlike Idaho Democrats who shut the press out of their platform discussions just weeks ago, the GOP Convention was transparent and open to the public.

I was one of the Delegates to that Convention and would like to highlight some of the ideas that were presented. Of course, some will work out and some will never work their way through the extensive legislative process. I will divide the ideas into two categories - free market economics and government accountability - and explain some of the background reasoning.

ECONOMICS

The election of Miracle Man Obama - not only can he feed the six billion, but he can also provide them with housing, transportation, communications, defense, medical care, and retirement - proves that government schools have not accurately taught economics for generations.

Parents, even if you supplement your child's education with public or private schooling, it doesn't remove your primary responsibility. Please make sure they learn great American principles such as free market economics.

Let's define some basic economic terms and discuss how they relate to our circumstances. To learn more, I recommend the Ludwig von Mises Institute (http://mises.org), a research and educational center that offers many thousands of free resources on economics and liberty.

• Inflation is an increase in the money supply. There is an average of a two year time delay between monetary inflation and the resulting price increases. So when will we likely see the results of the “bailouts” of late 2008 and the “stimulus” of early 2009?
• Deflation is a decrease in the money supply or when its rate of growth declines in relation to the increase in the production of other goods. It results in price decreases and was experienced for over 125 years of America's history (until creation of the Fed in 1913). Deflation means your money buys more and more instead of less and less.
• Velocity is the number of times per year the average dollar is exchanged in transactions. The great scare of 2008 caused a decrease in economic activity - lower velocity - which produced deflationary results in 2009. As the initial scare fades into the past, economic activity will increase and velocity will produce inflationary results.
• Hyperinflation is an extremely rapid increase in the money supply. There are many examples of the devastating results of hyperinflation in just the last century. Savings are wiped out virtually overnight. The ensuing economic chaos has resulted in riots and sets the stage for a police state. Having a sound money system in place would be our golden parachute.

Republicans passed another resolution and updated the platform to stress the importance of honest money as the foundation of a prosperous market economy. What's the biggest reason to restore sound money?

1. Big Government: The feds currently print unlimited dollars for “bailouts” and “stimulus” and to pay for the welfare/warfare state, reward their cronies, and buy the cooperation of state and local governments. Because they can't print unlimited amounts of gold and silver, lovers of Big Government despise sound money. Restore honest money and stop Big Government.
2. Transfer of Wealth: To illustrate how this works, let's say there was a total of $1 trillion in existence 10 years ago and you had worked, scraped, and saved $100 thousand for retirement. Everyone knows that the cost of groceries doubled in the last decade. Your $100 thousand now only buys $50 thousand worth of groceries. How did your other $50 thousand in earnings vanish into thin air? They doubled the money supply to $2 trillion (see point #1) which cut the purchasing value of your savings in half.

Republicans also called for reducing the tax burden to spur job growth, replacing Idaho's income tax with a fair tax, repealing the counterproductive Contractor Registration Act, and no fee increases without decreases in taxes.

ACCOUNTABILITY

Today we're told that the federal government alone gets to define its power. What a frightfully dangerous scenario that would be. If only one side in a contract gets to interpret the terms and can change them on a whim, it is no contract at all.

I think our Founders would be heartbroken, but I don't think they'd be surprised. They were well acquainted with the tendency toward tyranny when power is unchecked. They did their best to cripple their new government to prevent the centralization of power.

Unfortunately for America, partisan extremists from the left and the right are guilty of excusing violations of the Constitution when it's “their guy” in power, and then condemning the “other guys” until they reacquire power. What can we do to curtail abuses no matter who's in power?

Government accountability was a hot topic at the Idaho GOP Convention: from calling for the state checkbook to be posted online to holding Republican politicians accountable by getting their pledge of support for the party platform accompanied by a statement declaring any disagreements they have with it.

Many of the resolutions and platform changes focused on state's rights, restoring the proper balance of power and reigning in the federal government:

• We believe Idaho should strongly assert its sovereignty under the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
• We not only affirm our commitment to the tradition of state nullification of unconstitutional federal laws, but we also specifically call for the Idaho legislature to nullify the federal health care bills of 2010.
• U.S. Senators were originally appointed by the state legislature to represent state's rights in the national legislature, while Congressmen represented the people. Enacted in 1913, the 17th Amendment changed the way Senators are elected and state's rights have been ignored ever since. We call for repeal of the 17th Amendment.
• Redistricting Idaho should result in a new legislature made up of one senator from each county and representatives from districts based on population.
• We reject any federal interference in intrastate direct-to-consumer food commerce.
• All federal and state police actions should be approved by the county sheriff, the chief law enforcement office of the County.
• Juries have the right to determine both the facts and the law, and are not bound by the judge's interpretation of the law.
• Voters should be asked to approve debt-financed city projects.

I got to serve on the Resolutions Committee at the Convention. We were presented with 41 resolutions and passed 24 of them. Surprisingly, it took less than three hours to do it. When they were presented to the whole Convention the following day, several of them were shot down, including one that called for the establishment of an Idaho constitutional militia to protect against a disaster or similar occurrence.

With record attendance at this year's Convention, I believe it was a great success and much good will come of it. I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Constitutional Carry

In addition to passing a resolution (see below) that says, “concealed carry permits should not be compulsory for citizens who wish to lawfully carry a concealed firearm within Idaho,” last weekend the 2010 Idaho Republican Party State Convention passed numerous other good resolutions and platform changes, some of which support:

• ObamaCare Nullification
• The 10th Amendment and nullification of unconstitutional federal laws
• Sound Money
• Transparency
• Jury Nullification

FREEDOM FROM REGISTRATION RESOLUTION

WHEREAS the constitution of Idaho Article I Section 11 states, "no law shall impose licensure, registration or special taxation on ownership or possession of firearms..."

WHEREAS concealed carry permits are a type of licensure and registration

WHEREAS Arizona has passed a law to allow unlicensed concealed carry

BE IT RESOLVED THAT concealed carry permits should not be compulsory for citizens who wish to lawfully carry a concealed firearm within Idaho.

BE IT RESOLVED THAT concealed carry permits should only be issued as requested by Idaho citizens for interstate travel.

BE IT RESOLVED THAT Idaho gun laws should prohibit any type of recorded licensure or registration.

Submitted by Lucas Baumbach

A Very Taxing Process

By Idaho State Rep. Phil Hart

After fighting what I believed was an unconstitutional federal income tax, six years ago I capitulated, filed returns, and have since then, paid $120,054 in combined state and federal income taxes (including the interest and penalties). At the time, I was also working toward a settlement with the IRS. What derailed this settlement process was becoming a target for an audit. My experiences provide a case study of why we need to get rid of the income tax on wages and salaries.

Years ago I became interested in the income tax and wanted to understand how it worked. I had read a lot of the literature on the subject. In doing so, I noticed there was a big gaping hole in the literature. No one had written about the intent of the Income Tax Amendment when it was debated and finally ratified on February 25, 1913. Plus I thought it would be easier to research the purpose and intent of the income tax rather than study the Internal Revenue Code. I focused my research on the years 1908 to 1913, as this was when the income tax amendment was debated. Because I discovered so much new information in doing this research, I wrote a book about it.

The genesis of the modern income tax was the Democrat Party’s Presidential Platform of 1908. The income tax plank read,

“We favor as part of our revenue system, and we urge the submission of a constitutional amendment specifically authorizing Congress to levy and collect a tax upon individual and corporate incomes to the end that wealth might bear its proportionate share of the burdens of the Federal Government.”

At the time there were no entitlement programs, and the greatest beneficiary of government was the wealthy. But with only consumption taxes, the wealthy were not paying for the benefits they received. The income tax did not start out as a “soak the rich” scheme, but only as an attempt to be fair in distributing the burdens of the cost of government. It was not a tax on people, but only a tax on what was called at the time “accumulated wealth.”

In 1909, the author of the Income Tax Amendment, Senator Brown from Nebraska said “It is the theory of the friends of the income tax proposition that property should be taxed and not individuals.” 44 Congressional Record, 1570 (1909).

I litigated the issue with the government, challenging its constitutionality. My challenge to the income tax included petitioning the United States Supreme Court. But the Supreme Court would not hear my case. The late Mr. Paul Chappell, a former attorney with the IRS Office of Chief Counsel for the District of Columbia said of my Petition “Reading Phil Hart’s work is like returning to law school. After decades of practice as a tax attorney, Phil makes me feel as if I’m a student again.” And after reading my Petition for the eighth time, another tax attorney, Mr. Arch McColl wrote me, “What you did was brilliant legal work in your Petition for Certiorari….”

In 2004, after my judicial remedy had been exhausted, I filed 1040 returns to get caught up. Suddenly I found myself in an IRS audit. I had to sue the IRS to avoid turning over the names and addresses of those who purchased my book, Constitutional Income. I was represented by the Center for Individual Rights, a Washington D.C. public interest freedom of speech law firm. As far as CIR can figure out, I was the first author in American history to have the government demand I turn over such names and addresses.

The Center for Individual Rights won these lawsuits for me. There were actually two lawsuits, and each lawsuit took a year. However, four years later when the IRS issued their final audit report, the IRS denied all my business deductions for eight years. The amount of denied deductions totaled $300,000. Why? An IRS employee told me “When you don’t give us everything we ask for, you get all of your deductions denied.” For them, this isn’t about the liens or the money; it is about getting the names.

I believe I have a First Amendment right to protect the identities of my readers, just as a journalist has a First Amendment right to protect their sources. I also believe in protecting my readers’ Forth Amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures. These are principles worth defending!

During this four year audit, I provided the IRS with all my canceled checks, receipts, invoices and so on. Boxes worth. Yet all these deductions were denied solely for political reasons. Losing $300,000 worth of deductions inflated my now purported “taxable income” and the tax imposed thereon. My expenses for engineering and drafting personnel were denied, office rent expenses denied, office supply expenses denied, book publishing expenses including editors, artists and printing expenses denied. All of my business deductions were denied, all of them. What small business can operate with $0 in business expenses over an eight year period?

Protecting my readers from having big government snooping into their lives has increased my state and federal tax liability by about $125,000.

When the Idaho State Tax Commission got their hands on this IRS audit report that reflected the $300,000 in denied business deductions, they wanted their cut of the inflated “taxable income” too. This is the main issue currently being contested in my litigation with them.

After the Supreme Court declined to hear my case, I began making tax payments. But of the $120,054 I have paid since then, not a single dollar of these payments has been used to offset any of the lien amounts. It’s a nightmare. I would happily trade places with any of my detractors who somehow think I’ve gotten a “good deal.”

Regardless of whether or not the income tax on wages and salaries is constitutional, most agree on one thing: it is an inefficient and privacy invading tax. On the private side, it takes 22 cents for its bookkeeping, reporting, accounting fees, and legal fees for every $1 collected. Whereas a consumption tax takes only one cent for compliance on the private side for every $1 collected.

The income tax places a huge tax on wages and salaries. We all know you get less of what you tax. And guess what? We now have fewer jobs. The income tax on wages and salaries is a job killer. And such a complicated system provides many opportunities for abuse on both the private side and the government side.

These circumstances of mine have created a lot of controversy. But how can it be wrong for me to fight for my legitimate deductions and to stand on my principals?

Ceding more of Idaho to the Feds

WASHINGTON — Championed by Rep. Simpson, and now Senators Crapo and Risch, the Central Idaho Economic Development and Recreation Act — CIEDRA — has been hailed as a compromise. But both supporters and opponents of the measure acknowledged during a hearing by the public lands and forests subcommittee of the Senate Energy and Commerce Committee that the bill is far from perfect.

Idaho lawmakers asked the Democrat Congress on Wednesday for continued negotiation and collaboration on the sweeping legislation that would designate more than 300,000 acres of land in the Boulder-White Clouds mountain ranges as wilderness.

But advocates for recreation enthusiasts argued that the legislation was unnecessary, with much of the land already under federal control, and would hamper motorized recreation in the land.

Bill Dart, a representative of the Idaho Recreation Council, said he doesn't think the measure is necessary, as much of the area that would be designated as wilderness is already covered by the National Recreation Act, which prevents mining and logging.

During his testimony, Simpson reiterated his commitment to work with the various interests that have stakes in the outcome of the bill. Despite criticism from motorized recreation enthusiasts who say the measure would limit their use of land and environmentalists that claim the bill doesn't go far enough, Simpson said his bill protects Idaho's land [from] its people.

"The people live and recreate in this area are just important as the lines we draw on a map," Simpson said.

The hearing came only a day after Gov. Butch Otter voiced his opposition to the bill in a letter to Senators Risch and Crapo.

"My opposition to CIEDRA and additional wilderness areas in Idaho should not surprise anyone. I recognize the need for economic development in Custer County, Clayton, and the surrounding communities, but remain unconvinced that the answer is more wilderness acres and federal red-tape," the letter said.

Otter's Democratic opponent, Keith Allred, quickly released a statement proclaiming his support for the bill and condemning Otter for offering only last-minute suggestions for change.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/06/16/96020/idaho-wilderness-bill-needs-more.html

Freedom Watch Debut: Tea Party Summit

This Saturday marked the national debut of Judge Napolitano's Freedom Watch on the Fox Business Network. The guest list for the first episode included Ron Paul, Rand Paul, Jim DeMint, Michele Bachmann, Dick Armey, and Sarah Palin.

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=45C36BDCC7FAB086

ObamaCare Nullification

Resolution for the Idaho Legislature to Nullify the Federal Health Care Bills of 2010

Whereas, The people of the several states comprising the United States of America created the federal government to be their agent for certain enumerated purposes as set forth in the United States Constitution, and nothing more; and

Whereas, The Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution defines the total scope of federal powers as being those which have been delegated by the people of the several states to the federal government, and all powers not delegated to the federal government in the Constitution of the United States are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people themselves; and

Whereas, The Ninth Amendment to the United States Constitution states, “The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people”; and

Whereas, The assumption of power that the federal government has made by enacting the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” (Public Law 111-148, March 23, 2010) and “Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010” (Public Law 111-152, March 30, 2010) is nowhere expressly granted by the United States Constitution and interferes with the right of the people of the State of Idaho to regulate health care as they see fit; therefore, be it

Resolved, That the Idaho Legislature pass a Federal Health Care Nullification Act to render null and void certain unconstitutional laws enacted by the Congress of the United States, taking control over the health care and health insurance industries and mandating that individuals purchase health insurance under threat of penalty.

Resolved, That a new section of law be codified in the Idaho Statutes as follows:

1. The legislature of the State of Idaho declares that the federal laws known as the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” (Public Law 111-148) and the “Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010” (Public Law 111-152), signed by President Barack Obama on March 23 and 30, 2010, are not authorized by the Constitution of the United States and violate its true meaning and intent as given by the Founders and Ratifiers, and are hereby declared to be invalid in this State, shall not be recognized by this State, are specifically rejected by this State, and shall be considered null and void and of no effect in this State.
2. It shall be the duty of the legislature of this State to adopt and enact any and all measures as may be necessary to prevent the enforcement of the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” and the “Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010” within the limits of this State.
3. Any official, agent, or employee of the United States government or any employee of a corporation providing services to the United States government that enforces or attempts to enforce an act, order, law, statute, rule or regulation of the government of the United States in violation of this act shall be guilty of a felony and upon conviction must be punished by a fine not exceeding five thousand dollars ($5,000), or a term of imprisonment not exceeding five (5) years, or both.
4. Any public officer or employee of the State of Idaho that enforces or attempts to enforce an act, order, law, statute, rule, or regulation of the government of the United States in violation of this act shall be guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding two (2) years, or by a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars ($1,000), or both such fine and imprisonment.
5. Any aggrieved party shall also have a private action against any person violating the provisions of subsections (3) or (4).

Ask your candidates for state legislature if they will sponsor or support such legislation.

Stealing the American Dream: How Illegal Immigration Affects You

Speakers Tour

America’s doors are open. The welcome-mat is out .. and we left the lights on. Now, what do we do with 15 million-plus illegal aliens that refuse to assimilate? Are these interlopers who distain our laws, won’t learn our language, despise our culture and detest our heritage? Well then, why are they still here?

John F. McManus will detail America’s steep descent into darkness. Why must America relinquish her language, culture and heritage? And why won’t Congress stretch forth its hand to lead America back to the light?

John F. McManus, President of The John Birch Society, will review the immigration policy of our nation and why it has been eviscerated. He’ll expose why Congress perpetuates self-inflicted blindness. They’ve spawned a hybrid strain of bureaucrats who glut themselves on gov-spending; gov-edicts; gov-welfare; gov-corruption; gov-debt; gov-taxes; and always more government. Their consumption and corruption absolutely knows no limitations.

Are we to provide for all their needs: meals; food-stamps; housing allowance; emergency medical facilities; social security allowances; K-12 education and college tuition; and aid to their children? This is not some future scenario.

The only assimilation they know is provided by the gangs, or LaRaza, or cash business that bypasses any declaration of income or tax payments. This is an illegal subculture embracing an American Marxist movement, not to be lost on anticipated Obama amnesty that will welcome them all as Democratic voters!

Let us become informed and aware of our awfulness situation.. so we can more effectively fight this massive invasion. Please plan to attend:

• Boise: Tuesday, June 15, 7:00 P.M.
• Twin Falls: Wednesday, June 16, 7:00 P.M.
• Idaho Falls: Thursday, June 17, 7:30 P.M.