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Fact sheets School reform | Social inSecurity Gun rights | Drug war wrongs Taxation For interesting candidate facts, please visit the bio page. School reform: Liberating schools from politics --Minorities, poor families, and inner-city parents are the biggest supporters of school choice. more --Free market schooling will deliver better education at less than half the cost of government-run schools. more --About half of state taxes go towards government schools. Educational freedom means these taxes will plummet. The total tax cut can be over $300-billion per year. more --Click here for school choice facts & myths. --back to top-- Social inSecurity --Social Security will be in the red by 2012 if it isn't fixed soon. Social Security is a pay-as-you-go system, which means today's workers pay the benefits for today's retirees. In 1940, there were 42 workers per retiree; today there are three. By 2040, there will be only two. more --Social Security benefits are not guaranteed. In two major cases, Helvering v. Davis (1937) and Flemming v. Nestor (1960), the Supreme Court ruled that individuals have no legal claim to Social Security. --Blacks and the working poor would benefit the most from Social Security privatization. more --Click here to compare your promised Social Security benefits with what you could have earned under a privatized system. --back to top-- The right to self-defense --The most outspoken gun control advocates -- politicians and celebrities -- are the very same people who enjoy the luxury of armed guards or personally owning a gun: Rosie O' Donnell, Chicago Mayor Daley, Sen. Dianne Feinstein & others. --Guns are used defensively over 2.5 million times/year. more --Gun bans actually lead to an increase in crime, since disarmed citizens are defenseless against thugs (who will obtain guns regardless of whether or not it's illegal). When citizens are allowed to carry a concealed gun, crime drops. --98% of the time when people use a gun defensively, merely brandishing the firearm is sufficient to stop an attack. more --Click here to access Gun Facts Book in Adobe PDF. --back to top-- Drug war wrongs --Drugs were legal in the United States until the 1914 Harrison Narcotics Act (give or take a year, depending upon the specific drug). --There is a direct correlation between drug prohibition and a skyrocket in crime. Click here for details. --About 60% of federal prisoners are drug offenders. Just 3% are violent offenders. Whereas violent offenders serve an average of 54% of their prison term, drug offenders are legally required to serve at least 85% of their prison term. (US Justice Department Bureau of Prison Statistics) --The impact of the drug war on families is devastating. Click here for more. To view the faces of nonviolent drug war prisoners, click here. --Over 80% of the increase in the federal prison population from 1985 to 1995 was due to drug convictions. more --The war on drugs is racially disproportionate -- 15% of illicit drug users are blacks yet they represent 39% of the prison population incarcerated for drug crimes. more --The United States operates the biggest prison system on the planet. more Click here for drug war facts and fallacies. --back to top-- Taxation (extortion) --Most Americans believe paying taxes is a patriotic duty. Yet this very nation was founded upon people evading taxes in 1776. more --Before 1914, there was no income tax. --Today, add the cost of taxes (federal, state, local) and regulation together, and the government soaks up nearly 57% of your economic life -- a far greater share than feudal lords of the Middle Ages demanded of their vassals. (Harry Browne, Why Government Doesn't Work) --In other words, you work until around July 27 of each year (6 months, 27 days) for government, and only the remaining 5 months and 4 days for yourself. --back to top-- |
