Pulled from discussion on Yahoo Groups…Â
Congressman Linder held a teleconference town hall meeting on April 28th 2008 (tuesday night) @ 7 pm on the FairTax.  In the conference, he said that he would agree to add language to the bill to delay implementing the FairTax until after the 16th amendment is repealed. This was in the context of his meeting with Senator McCain, who said that we would have to repeal the 16th.  Linder seemed to be implying that he was open to that idea, if that is what it took to get Senator McCain on board. He has no intention of withdrawing HR 25 from this session of congress and reintroducing it under a new bill # unless it would mean a major increase in support, such as getting Senator McCain.  In the past, Linder has decided against making changes between sessions because of the difficulties surrounding informing all of the co-sponsors.  Linder says that the bill will not come out of committee this year – while Chairman Rangel has been verbally supportive, he isn’t taking any action.  He also said that the “flatter” tax proposal that Senator McCain has proposed isn’t revenue neutral.
It is quite common to hear the flat taxers object that we have to repeal the 16th first or else we would end up with both. Â Â In the past, Linder has also considered adding sunset language so that we would not have to delay implementation for several years until the 16th could be repealed.