Letter to the Editor: Misinformation
BY Billy D. Harrington, Owasso
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
10/16/12 at 2:53 AM
As the managing director of the Oklahoma FairTax I need to set the record straight. The Oct. 2 article "Bridenstine, Olson continue tax fight" contains distortions and half-truths by Democrat candidate John Olson.
Three Houston businessmen, Leo Linbeck Jr., Robert McNair and the late Jack Trotter, decided to do research and development for a tax system that would work while being transparent, maintaining the same revenue stream for the government and being fair to all taxpayers. Their effort had nothing to do with the Church of Scientology.
They asked 45 top economists if they were interested in participating; 25 were. That group, from institutions such as Harvard University, Boston University, MIT and the National Bureau of Economic Research, was trimmed to eight. The results of the study called for the replacement of the present tax code with a national sales tax.
More than $22 million was spent to test the market, and the name FairTax was developed from that effort. FairTax "is very progressive, but on a discretionary basis" according to Leo Linbeck Jr.
I will be happy to meet with anyone, including Olson, to discuss the other points of misinformation in the Oct. 12 article.
Editor's note: Harrington is managing director of Oklahoma FairTax, Inc.
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