Ahhhh yes....Rufas T. Firefly and Mrs. Teasdale! That's when movies were really funny.

Rochester, Minnesota: A Fem_Leftist City!

Geez, Uns,

I've been waiting for you to kick in on this topic!

Exempting a class of people from income taxes is wrong.

I don't care if they make $1 a year.  Some percentage, for argument let's say 10 cents (10% for Rio Linda).  If they make $2 they get 90 cents more.

What a beautiful concept.  They pay for their government too.  Maybe that will make them realize there is no free lunch.  And the problem is we have a number of people in the USA who get a free lunch.  The concept of using tax policy to modify behavior (houses, energy program, etc) is wrong.  With the flat tax, one pays and one goes.

For example, what incentive would a person have in a 'progressive' tax system to make another dollar if the tax was 90%?  Not much.

And what incentive would a person have making $1 million a year to make $1 million plus $1 dollar with a flat tax of 10%?  The same incentive one would have to turn $1 dollar a year into $2 a year.

So, what do you do when you have too much money?  Invest it.  In what?  Well, in the dot-com era, just about any loony scheme one comes up with.  In the Democrat 'progressive' era, just about anything that doesn't entail a risk.

So, that is pretty much the story.  Of course, the people who make their living off the tax system itself, well, dislocations happen.

ACA

...

Acaiguana says:  "I love blind Monkeys and any inference that I am making fun of blind Monkeys would be wrong.

The "Fair Tax" isn't; sales taxes disproportionally hit the poorest Americans.  (so much for me being a shill for the rich only, huh?) Not to mention that it is an attack on C (of C+I+G+X-M) and normally advocated by those who think the savings rate is too low.

First off, allow me to shoot down one myth: the elimination of the IRS.  Regardless of whichever path is taken, you are going to need an IRS.  You will need a bureaucracy to collect the taxes and ensure they are being collected.  I would wager that it would even have to expand and even be more vicious and nasty under a national sales tax regime.  Have you ever seen what happens to a store in your neighborhood whenever the state isn't getting its sales tax money?  They go in and shut the place down, impounding everything in the store.  Imagine the federal authorities doing that all over the country.  And yes, that kind of enforcement will indeed be necessary.

If you STILL believe the IRS will be eliminated, allow me to ask you this: how would tax collection be enforced?  Law without force is impotent, as Pascal once said. 

Point 2 is proof positive that this tax is advocated by those who are deeply concerned over the savings rate.  Additionally, advocates of this "fair tax" whine to me all the time that it isn't a VAT.  Unfortunately, it will in the end behave like one.  Think about it: if you run a small business...say, an auto repair shop...you charge whatever the national sales tax is to the customer.  But then you have to factor all the things you buy to run your business (PC, paper, office supplies, tools, replacement parts for the shop, machinery, etc.) - you are a customer at some point paying a national sales tax yourself at some point - and you simply are not going to "eat" all those expenses out of the kindness of your heart.  You, being a wise businessman knowing there is no such thing as a free lunch - will pass on all of those expenses to the consumer who is there to get his car fixed.  Hence this "fair tax" will act exactly as a VAT, without it being CALLED a VAT. 

Finally, the most important point is this, and shockingly, I caught Dr. Walt Williams on a GOOD day when he focused on the issues and topics he knows best on the Limbaugh program.  He cautioned his audience to remember one thing: you HAVE to repeal the 16th Amendment BEFORE you get a national sales tax passed. 

But all in all, for the reasons outlined above, I am opposed to the idea of a national sales tax. 

"HAV3 TH3 BRIDG3S OF INSANITY B33N CROSS3D AND FOR3V3R R3TRACT3D???."  - Meshuggah, "3ntrapm3nt", from Catch Thirty Thr33 (2005)