Wearing bib overalls and sporting a scraggly beard flecked with gray, Lawrenceville concrete contractor Steven Worley traveled to the nation's capital recently to champion a proposed national sales tax before a powerful congressional committee.

Steven Worley, a Lawrenceville concrete contractor, testified in his overalls before the U.S. House of Representative Ways and Means Committee for Linder's FairTax bill. Staff Photo: Bill Roa

After hearing about Republican congressman Rep. John Linder's FairTax bill last year, Worley, 45, knew he had to do something if he wanted to see changes in how taxes are collected.

For the first time, Linder's FairTax bill was to be in the national spotlight - the topic of discussion at the U.S. House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee's three-day hearing on tax reform scheduled for April 10 to 13.

The Linder bill is a bipartisan effort that would do away with the Internal Revenue Service and replace it with a national sales tax.

Prominent economists and business leaders were called in from across the country to testify before the committee. Worley was intent on being there.

"When I heard that the FairTax bill would get rid of the IRS, my ears perked up like a big old bird dog," Worley said.

"I didn't know that I could go before the Ways and Means Committee, but the good Lord has blessed me in everything that I've applied myself to. So I believed there wasn't any reason I couldn't achieve it."

Once he heard about the committee meetings, only a few days before they were to commence, Worley got on the telephone. He went straight to the top. He called the office of Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Archer, a Republican from Texas.

The committee received hundreds of telephone calls from people wanting to testify for the FairTax. By some miracle, Worley's name popped to the top of the list.

At the request of Archer's office, an excited Worley packed his overalls and traveled to Washington at his own expense to attend four days of hearings.

For one brief moment, Worley thought about shaving his beard and buying a suit, but friends convinced him to appear before the committee in his everyday garb - bib overalls.

Although he has only a high school education, in his two-page speech, Worley educated committee members on the history of taxes and quoted Alexander Hamilton's Federalist Papers with such phrases as:

"There is no part of the administration of government that requires extensive information and a thorough knowledge of the principals of political economy, so much as the business of taxation. It might be demonstrated that the most productive system of finance will always be the least burdensome."

The trip was an education for Worley as well.

"By going, I learned that this is still our country and we can effect change if we desire to do so," Worley said.

Linder's bill likely will not see action on the House floor until next year. However, Worley says he plans to get more deeply involved with Americans for Fair Taxation, a private group supporting the national sales tax.

In Lawrenceville, Worley and his family operate Admiral Concrete Inc., a small business that employs about 36 employees and 30 subcontractors.

Formerly from Ohio, Worley moved to Georgia in 1971. He now lives on a horse farm outside of Madison.

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