CLT Associate Director Chip Faulkner flew to St Louis in mid-June to meet taxpayers groups from around the
country and the world. The four day conference, sponsored by the
National Taxpayers Union
Foundation, had as its
theme: "Activism for the New Millennium."
Activism there was, as participants from not only the United States but from around the world
attended and participated. For instance, leaders of taxpayer groups from republics in the former Soviet Union were there in abundance.
Putting this in perspective the president of the World Taxpayers
Associations, Björn
Tarras-Wahlberg of Sweden, a longtime friend of CLT, quipped on opening night: "Lenin said ‘Let the workers of the world unite!' Now the cry is: ‘Let the
taxpayers of the world unite!'"
There were numerous panels and workshops that emphasized research, direct mail, lobbying tactics, building membership, winning the media war, etc. One of the better
ones: "How do we fight the teacher unions?"
On Friday night, courtesy of the foundation, the attendees enjoyed a 2½ hour riverboat cruise including
dinner, up the Mississippi which was only a ten minute walk from the Radisson Hotel -- site of the conference.
During the sessions Chipster had opportunities to tell delegates about the CLT tax rollback victory last November. He passed out the
"Promises should be kept" brochure with the collage of newspaper articles using the word
"temporary" to describe the 1989 tax increase. Many delegates were amazed that CLT rode to victory with the active participation of the governor of the state! In their tax activist battles, many times their governor is the biggest opponent.
(Faulkner reminded them not to feel bad: once upon a time we had a governor by the name of Michael S.
Dukakis...)
Faulkner also publicized CLT's "voluntary tax" bill which many delegates thought was quite appropriate given the high moral ground the opposition always tries to take.
Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax
Reform, became quite interested when Chip gave him a copy of the bill. (Many CLT members may still remember the great speech Grover gave at our annual dinner a few years ago.)
Bill Sizemore, president of Oregon Taxpayers
United, reported that in 1998 his ballot question lost. The unions were crowing about the defeat, stating that they spent $5 million "but could have spent more." Bill decided to find out
how much more and put seven questions on the ballot last year! He
forced them to spend over $12 million.
Richard Vedder, economics professor at Ohio
University noted: "The greatest under-reported U.S. mass migration was the 2.8 million people who moved from the 41states that have income taxes to the 9 that don't. This happened from 1990-1999 and excludes immigrants."
Quipped luncheon speaker Jim Glassman: "Here's a sequel to the movie "Air Force
One," called "Air Force Two." In this version all 535 members of Congress are kidnapped and the terrorists threaten to
release them."
|
|
L to R: Björn Tarras-Wahlberg, president of the
World Taxpayers Associations, Chip Faulkner, associate director of CLT,
and John Berthoud, president of the National Taxpayers Union
|
