A Response From FairTax.org

Ken Hoagland, Fairtax.org's communications director, writes, in response to this post:

For the most part your report was accurate except to say that we have shut down our Iowa operations. That's not so although one of our former field staff apparently thinks so. The FairTax bus will be in Iowa on Monday, we still have an Iowa Field Coordinator employed and we are still doing talk shows, op-eds, letters and a lot of work on the Internet.

Beyond that, we have hundreds of thousands of ardent supporters who carry the message forward and who are working every day to see the FairTax not only embraced by candidates but enacted by Congress. Do we have a way to go? Certainly. Wresting their favorite power and profit game away from Congress is no small task but with 68 co-sponsors now--more than ever before and more than any other reform tax proposal--we are not mourning but celebrating our progress.

We made a judgment early this year to go full speed toward the Iowa Straw Poll, to hold a 10,000 person rally in South Carolina and to increase our organizing work in South Carolina, Florida and New Hampshire. We achieved all of our goals and in so doing, exhausted much of bank account--but not all. While we have now regrouped and cut HQ overhead, we are poised to rise phoenix-like again, this time from the ashes of our successes and continue building on the growth that we have achieved.

Our direct mail program is on track to begin in January, our contract with the Internet marketing firm Convio (the folks who helped Mr. Dean a while back) is in place and our membership continues to grow.

All this is to say--don't count us out yet Marc. If it was easy we would already have a better tax system.