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The
Sunday Gazette, July 1, 2001 SCHULZ FASTS TO GET GOV'T TAX ANSWERS My old friend Bob Schulz today begins a fast that he says will continue until he dies or, in the words of a formal statement, "until IRS Commissioner Charles O. Rossotti delivers to him a list of the government's experts who will meet in a public forum on Sept. 18, 2001, at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. with tax law researchers from the tax honesty movement, to argue against the conclusions of those researchers." How's that again, you say? Bob Schulz, best known for suing New York state government over its devious borrowing practices, is going to starve himself to death unless the head of the IRS provides him a list of people who will attend the forum? Has he gone completely off his nut, or what? Well, I'm not sure how to answer that. It's certainly not something I would risk my life for -- the issue of whether some bureaucrat will send flunkies to participate in a forum, even if the forum does concern the legality of the federal income tax. But Bob Schulz, let's face it, is not an ordinary guy. He's a guy who about 20 years ago got the idea that government ought to play by its own rules, and got that idea so fixedly, so single-mindedly, so determinedly that he has done little since then but try to make the world conform. He has sued the town of Queensbury, he has sued the Warren County Board of Supervisors, he has sued the Horseheads Central School District, he has sued the Caneadea Town Board, he has sued the Lake George Park Commission, and over and over again he has sued the state -- the Department of Environmental Conservation, the Board of Elections, the Legislature, the governor, the comptroller, the very Court of Appeals itself, before which he once had the distinction of arguing a case even though he is not a lawyer but just a persistent private citizen self-educated in the intricacies of jurisprudence. A hundred-some lawsuits since he retired as a General Electric engineer back in 1986, all of them prosecuted pro se, meaning on his own, without a lawyer. He won a few significant victories and suffered a few significant losses, but through it all he maintained his fervor that government must follow the rules and that the rules are established by "the people." In early 1999, in the course of doing a radio show, he became aware of a new issue. He heard from a few people who claimed the federal income tax has no basis in law. These people, one of them a former IRS agent, said the 16th amendment establishing the income tax was improperly ratified back in 1913 and the mighty Internal Revenue Service therefore rests on a foundation of quicksand. And off Bob went. For the past two years he has devoted himself to trying to get a response from the government. Here's our research, he says in effect, having allied himself with the protesters. What's your answer? If he were an ordinary guy he would probably do this in a letter to his congressman, he would get a perfunctory answer, and that would be the end of it. But Bob organized a symposium in Washington to present the research, then another, then another - four so far, the latest big enough, with 400 attendees, that it had to be moved to a suburban Hilton Hotel. He even got a meeting in the White House with President Clinton's executive director of the National Economic Council, Jason Furman, and with Sen. Trent Lott's policy director and with a representative of House Speaker Dennis Hastert, all of whom promised they would send experts to his next symposium and answer the questions but then never delivered. ("Not a high priority item at the White House," Furman later wrote.) "We did everything right!" Bob protests, still aghast after all these years that he can follow a responsible course of action and get blown off by officialdom. The research is not frivolous. It shows that many of the states that supposedly ratified the income-tax amendment did so - take a guess, dear reader - in violation of their own rules. They didn't give the thing the requisite three readings, or they didn't send a certified copy back to Washington, or they didn't hold it until after the next state election so it could be duly debated. Thirty-six of the then-48 states had to approve the amendment for it to be adopted. The secretary of state at the time certified that 38 had done so, but the protestors' research shows that no more than 20 did it by the rules. Therefore, there is no legal basis for the federal income tax. So it appears. And the government won't respond. Now, in my view, this is very jolly, and without having looked into it, I'm prepared to believe Bob and his allies are right. It certainly sounds possible. But Bob is going to starve himself to death over it. "It's the logical next step," He assures me. Right now, today, he and his supporters are setting up a 16-foot trailer near the Lincoln Memorial, with a big sign on either side, stating their case, and with a podium and microphone to the rear, and Bob is going to spend his days there, subsisting only on water, until the government agrees to give some answers. The sign says: And down below, in smaller type, next to a small photo of Bob: "One Man Hungers. A Nation Prays. As America Watches." Well, it was just too much for me when I heard about it the other day, so I hopped in my car and drove up to Lake George, where Bob lives, to try to talk him out of it. I have a high regard for him as a result of his principled battles in Albany, and I wasn't about to see him commit suicide over some silly thing like whether Tennessee's vote on the income-tax amendment a century ago was properly undertaken. I found him at his very comfortable house, situated on 150 acres of rolling meadow and forest just off Route 9L on the east side of the lake, fully prepared for me with his "logical next step" argument. It wasn't till later, actually, that I thought of the proper response to the argument, which is, that's exactly the trouble - it's logical. Stop being so damn logical, is what I should have said to him. Reconcile yourself to a little injustice, a little absurdity, a little illogic. Have a glass of wine and enjoy the view. But Bob is more than logical, he's an absolutist. "When I see the government taking one step outside the boundary we have drawn around them, I become alarmed," he told me. They take possession of a boundless field of power." For him one step is the same as a million steps. It's the principle of the thing. Government is out of control," he says. "As it gains ground, liberty loses ground. This is the time to control it." This is the time to enjoy the view, I should have said, as we sat on a balcony overlooking a lush meadow grazed by sheep. Do your little bit, and at the end of the day, kick off your shoes. But Bob studies the Founding Fathers, and especially he studies Thomas Jefferson, as you might guess, and he is determined that government shall not get bigger than "the People." "We're in charge, they've the servants," he insists - and not just insists, but swears by. So I couldn't sway him. I told him the income-tax anomaly is not something to die for, but I fear his principles have gotten the better of him. So today he stops eating until the government provides him with a list of experts who will attend his next symposium. He doesn't really expect to die. I should add. He expects the government to cave. "I don't believe the government will allow someone to waste away right at their door rather than answer some questions," he said. "The eyes of the world will be on this, hopefully." It's a pretty big "hopefully" in my view. |
