X the IRS

I just picked up a new book about getting rid of the IRS and the income tax and implementing a flat national sales tax. It's called, "The Fair Tax Book: Saying Goodbye to the Income Tax and the IRS," by Neal Boortz.

I'm looking forward to reading it.

It's another example of a fresh, innovative, daring idea that I don't care who came up with it. But, lo and behold, it's an idea that originated with conservatives, and is championed by them. Boortz is a libertarian, but his co-author on the book is Republican Congressman John Linder, of Georgia, who has sponsored a bill to get rid of the IRS since 1999.

I'm going to guess that most liberals would be too busy crying about welfare to even pay attention to the ideas in the book, to see whether or not the needs of the poor could be addressed some other, less communist-minded way.

Keep in mind that the Speaker of the House, J. Dennis Hastert, Illinois Republican, is in favor of eliminating the income tax, as the Washington Post reported a year ago after reading Hastert's book.

People ask me if I'm really calling for the elimination of the IRS, and I say I think that's a great thing to do for future generations of Americans," Hastert wrote.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution wrote about Boortz, a radio show host, and his book:

Neal Boortz is a New York Times best-selling author. So, as Boortz loves to say on air, "Bite me."

His literary accomplishment, "The FairTax Book," debuted at Numero Uno for nonfiction titles, and it's there for a second week in a row. That puts him ahead of a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and "Confessions of a Video Vixen."

Consider it a satisfying endorsement for Boortz, especially since he did it with a book that doesn't bash liberals — a favorite topic — but instead suggests throwing out the federal income tax and replacing it with a national retail sales tax. He also sees it as sweet revenge because he says his earlier book, "The Terrible Truth About Liberals," wasn't even stocked by many stores.

Boortz, 60 and a fixture on Atlanta radio for more than half his life, is doing all he can to pump up sales of the new book. For weeks he has promoted the book on his nationally syndicated radio show, which airs locally on his home station, WSB-AM. Since the book came out, he's been rushing around the Southeast urging listeners and crowds at book signings to get on board.

His 4 million weekly listeners — 480,000 of them in metro Atlanta — make for a national audience significantly smaller than that of Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh. Now Boortz has the kind of book credentials those bigger-name talkers enjoy. He's expecting to get some mileage out of it, winning converts for the tax plan and perhaps persuading more radio stations to carry his show, though he says that's not why he wrote the book.