Brian Davis and Minnesota's flat tax organizers

A comment on the Post Bulletin story about the national sales tax and Brian Davis piqued our interest: the person said that Davis attended Fair Tax meetings:

Brian Davis has att[e]nded Fair tax meetings.  Why doesn’t he just come clean and say that he’s for the Fair tax?

We understand that Brian Davis did attend this Rochester event in July. The Minnesota Fair Tax Roundtable, a Yahoo group, notifies readers:

News Release

Minnesota 4 Fair Tax will host a get acquainted meeting at the La Quinta Motel, 1600 So. Broadway, Rochester at 7:00PM on Wednesday, July 9th. We will be doing a Power Point overview of the FairTax, followed by discussion.

Rep. Walz, Brian Davis and Dick Day have been invited to attend.

The FairTax is a proposal before in U.S. House (HR25) to replace the income tax with a national sales tax. Nationally we are faced with many issues, but top priority is our economic future. The FairTax answers that all-important question, and you can learn all about it in
about half an hour. Bring a friend.

David Boone
District Director
Minnesota 1st District

Perhaps the Post Bulletin's  Matt Stolle could call Mr. Boone and ask if Davis spoke at the event, and if so, what he said. We are told that Davis did speak to those assembled.

Davis claims that:

"I've said this is an interesting idea. On one occasion, I think I said it was a good idea, but I wasn't ready to support it. I felt it needed more study," said Davis . . .

If Davis spoke to the fair tax meeting in July (and it is our understanding that he did), his remark at the earlier forum isn't the only time he has expressed interest.

There's also this April 21 item in the Minnesota Fair Tax Roundtable's archives:

. . .Right now I am talking face -to-face with 2 Republican contenders against Walz, in an attempt to make the FairTax an up-front issue in the race.

Readers may recall that Davis received the endorsement at the First district GOP convention at the end of March and Randy Demmer dropped out of the race as he had promised to do. Thus, Boone would have been having his face-to-face meetings with Dick Day and Brian Davis.

According to this week's Post Bulletin story:

But another Republican, state Sen. Dick Day of Owatonna, said it has always been his impression that Davis supported the fair tax. Day ran for the congressional seat but lost in the GOP primary against Davis in September. He did not participate in the debate, though.

"I've thought all along that he's been for the (fair) tax. I've always thought that. I think his supporters would be disappointed if he wasn't," Day said.

Perhaps Senator Day got the impression that Davis supported the national sales tax from those face-to-face meetings with Boone. One thing is for certain, Davis's assertion that the "fair tax" only crossed his mind once meets the smell test less and less.

Photo: Once again, Davis's explanations are enough to--well, you get the picture.