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Dear Mind-numbed Robot,

"Then you have seen how they manipulate the present system. Your working against changing it is confusing, to me."

"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."

Look, a lot of these guys, congresscritters, are nice guys. But, they didn't get to Washington because they're self-sacrificing, selfless, ego-less martyrs. They got there in part because they manipulate the system better than the other guy.

You think that by changing the location of the tax collection tollbooth that these fellows are going to stop manipulating the system.

I know that should that result actually occur, they would all be swept away from power. Their very survival depends on manipulating the system. They manipulate the current system, and will manipulate a new system.

And I'm not willing to say that the manipulation of the system is all bad. It is always a result of politics, and to a great degree, that's actually a good thing.

One might say that the politicians of the small states manipulated the Constitutional Convention so that even the tiniest state got equal representation in the Senate with the largest state. One may make arguments to support that manipulation, but let's face it, those arguments are after-the-fact arguments, derived to support the raw politics of the situation - the very good, very adept, very manipulative politicians from states like Maryland, Delaware, and Rhode Island knew that no new constitution would fly at home if the large states would control everything.

Now, we enshrine that compromise as being almost the necessary outcome of the application of High Principle, but it originated in the raw, dirty, nitty-gritty needs of politicians trying to stay in power with their constituencies. I think it worked out pretty well. It's amazing that political deals often do.

But that's the nature of politics.

And changing how you collect 1/5 of GDP isn't going to change that fact.

"Since you seem to share our opinion, I am at a lost as to why you don't want to neuter them."

Well, I just don't see how this neuters them. They will have a nice new system, nice and shiny and clean, just waiting for their fresh graffitti, to write all over it, leave their mark, manipulate in much more fundamental ways to meet their constituencies needs(betcha there's an exemption for ethanol used as fuel within 24 months).

Nothing inherent in this system neuters them in any way at all.

But, while we give them this shiny new toy, we don't really take away the old one. We put the income tax in the closet, and for a few years, folks will give them grief if they try to take it out. But folks have short memories. The politicians count on it.

Also, folks like to complain. Bitterly. Most people are filled with joy by having something about which to complain bitterly. And folks will complain bitterly about the 30% sales tax. And how they have to pay it on food. And health insurance. And clothing. And new houses. And their mortgage payment.

And taking the time to explain to folks things like "broadened tax base" and "no increase in general price levels" will only go so far.

And, promising goodies to the middle and lower classes, the politicians will eventually take the old toy out of the closet, but JUST FOR THE RICH PEOPLE!! And we know that they'll be telling the truth, right?

You wanna neuter these guys?

Repeal the 16th amendment first.

Cut the size of government first.

You say, well that's politically infeasible.

You may be right.

But that doesn't mean that your preferred vehicle of "neutering" these guys will actually accomplish the task.

I just don't believe it will. I've worked around these folks, up close and personal.

"There are technical reasons why it is best not to try to amend the Constitution first,..."

No there aren't. Not any at all. Please cite them specifically. I don't want to hear that it would be easier or faster. I want to know the "technical" reasons.

"After all this discussion, I would assume that you know that the Fair Tax does not tax the entire GDP."

I didn't say it did.

However, to collect approximately 20% GDP will require approximately a 30% sales tax on the proposed tax base.

It is reasonable to assume that if we need to collect half of that percentage of GDP, say, 10%, we will likely need a sales tax of about half of 30%, or about 15%.

As well, if we need to collect only about 4/10 of that approximately 20% of GDP - or, in other words, about 8%, we would only need 4/10 of the original 30%, or about 12%.

Getting the federal government down to 8% of GDP probably isn't achievable in my lifetime. Even 10% would be very tough.

But those are the proper goals.

"As I have said before, the advantages of the NRST seem so obvious to me it is hard to imagine opposition."

Almost by definition, the immediate advantages of the NRST seem slight. After all, it's revenue neutral.

The potential immediate disadvantages are large.

What's intriguing is the possible long-term advantages.

But although they intrigue me, I'm not persuaded that they would occur.

That's in part because those who tell me about the long-term advantages have not been accurate about the short-term impacts. Thus, if they didn't understand accurately the actual short-term impacts, I have no confidence that they have any understanding of long-term effects.

sitetest

I had written a lengthy response to your post addressing each of your points. In the end I decided to trash it. Your concerns are not so much with the NRST as they are with people, specifically politicians but politicians are just people in particular positions of power. I assume the desire of all of us is to minimize that power and to make what is left work equally well for all of us.

You think that by changing the location of the tax collection tollbooth that these fellows are going to stop manipulating the system.

There is a world of difference between taxing consumption instead of income. It is not just relocating the collection point. Karl Marx recommended the income tax as the best way to bring down Capitalism. Alan Keyes said:

Last week I discussed the importance of abolishing the income tax because of its tendency to form a habit of servility in the souls of a people that accepts it. Servility of soul is bad not only in itself, it is also an open door through which will soon walk the abuses of ambitious government power. Leaders who find themselves with governmental power over a servile people will be quick to conclude that such a people exist to serve them. And in the 20th century we have seen the horrors to which such conclusions tend.

President Clinton is a kind of prophetic precursor of the kind of leader we can expect increasingly to see -- naturally and easily presuming that the entire people he leads is merely an instrument of his own ego. This trend has been going on throughout the course of the 20th century, and is now coming to a head in the explicit precedents set by Clinton of the usurpation and abuse of power. The leaders of tomorrow's America are watching now to see just how much this people will put up with, and they are forming their ambitions accordingly.

If we pay any attention at all to the current fake debate on tax cuts, it should be with this overall ambition of our governing class in mind. It is bad enough that Republicans expect us to be overjoyed at a tax cut that is less than half of the Reagan era tax cuts, and that is stretched out over 10 years. The tax cuts they are offering us are less than one third of what we are predicted to pay in "extra" taxes over that period. It is like overpaying for a car by $3 thousand, and being happy to get a check back for $8 hundred.

Yet what is worse is that even this minimal tax cut is being opposed in the Congress explicitly as a waste of federal dollars! But keeping more of our own money can be a waste of federal dollars only on the assumption that all of the money belongs to the federal government, and that politicians are doing us a favor when they let us keep a bit of it. This is exactly how they talk -- and I don't just mean Democrats. All the politicians in the country speak of it as a great favor when they let us keep a little more of what we have earned, and expect us to go down on our knees in gratitude and vote them back into office.

I believe that the reason our ruling class in Washington talks about all income as the property of government is that since the passage of the 16th Amendment, it really is. We made a major mistake at the beginning of this century, and as a result of that mistake we turned over to the government control, in principle, every last penny that anybody in this country makes or earns.

If I agree to turn over to someone a certain percentage of my income and also agree that the same person gets to set the percentage -- how much of my money does that person control? The answer, of course, is that he controls all of it. Anything he lets me keep based on an arrangement like that is simply a favor. Once I've made the agreement I have ceded to him the right to take whatever percent of my money he wants. The income tax is a system under which we have ceded to the government a pre-emptive claim to a certain percentage of our income, and the government sets the percentage. In principle, the government controls all of our money. That is why those in power talk as if they control all of our money -- they do.

The limitless extent of control the income tax gives to government was understood and recognized by some people even when the income tax was being instituted, and they fought it tooth and nail. Some of them pointed to the fact that, in the 19th century, Marx and Engels had written about the income tax for this very reason. One of the major elements of the communist agenda was taking over the people's money by means of the income tax, precisely because of the unlimited nature of the control it offered. So as we have been fighting communism throughout the 20th century, we had already put in place at the beginning of the century one of most important elements of communism, and we suffer under it right now.

The income tax, and the Federal Reserve system that arrived along with it, are instruments of the increased centralization of money and control over our economy, with all the bad effects that result from such control. As our political class becomes more ambitious, unscrupulous and dangerous, the entrenched centralization of our economic system remains an ever-present opportunity for them to extend further control over our lives.

The debate goes on about farm policy, for example. Every few years we have a new cycle of it, while we lose more and more of our farm families. Every politician under the sun, of course, stands up to say that we must "save the family farm." And yet every time a bill is passed to save the family farm, we lose more family farms.

The root reality that must be faced by those struggling to protect the family farm in America is that we cannot sustain a system of family farms in an economy with a centralized financial structure. This was the basis of the debate in the 19th century between supporters and opponents of a national bank. Opponents understood that the survival of grass roots institutions, including the preservation of businesses and farms in the hands of people in their communities, required banks that were citizens of those communities. Banks answering to higher powers, including centralized authority, and using the resources flowing through them to beef up the bottom line of institutions that don't answer to local citizens and aren't part of the local community will let local institutions go under when the times get tough. In such institutions, the family farm is struggling against a financial structure that is incompatible with its existence and survival.

Survival of the family farm won't be secure until we have changed the fundamental structure of finance and lending that services family farming. We must get control of local economic resources back in the hands of people in responsive local institutions that will care about what happens to the people who live in the local community. And what is true of the family farm is true as well of all forms of real local community and corporate life. We simply cannot expect that local and private institutions will flourish, and remain free, if we do not take ongoing and fundamental care to shift the balance of power and control back to them. If we permit economic power to remain centralized, this instrument of manipulation will be increasingly attractive to ambitious men, and used to bring us further under their control. Our founders understood that economic sovereignty was a pillar of defense against a political class eager to abuse its people. They were fond of quoting Blackstone, who said that "A power over a man's resources is a power over his will."

With the presidency of Bill Clinton we have entered an era of politicians who openly view government power as a means to personal gratification. The habits of shame and respect for the rule of law will not restrain our presidents, at least until the disgraceful Clinton precedents are reversed, and the Senate's pusillanimous acquittal of Clinton shows that the people's representatives cannot be relied upon either. The break-up of centralized governmental authority over our economic lives, and above all the elimination of the income tax, has never been a more pressing moral and political imperative. We must reclaim our economic sovereignty, so we can limit the damage our increasingly corrupt political class can inflict on our property, our wills, and our character.

You and Alan seem to agree on everything but the income tax. That seems inconsistent to me.

I am nearly as cynical as you about politicians but I do think there are some who are there for the common good rather than for self-aggrandizement. Just as you said evil intent has nevertheless developed a workable system, that is just the way politics works you said, why do you oppose a better tax system even if you think the intent is evil and will be manipulated?

Since it is a tax on consumption consider that you are buying government services and can, therefore, see how much it costs and what you are getting for your money.

Government can't make people good. In fact, it provides cover for the bad. No better cover is provided that the maze that is our current tax system. The NRST will clean it up and make it transparent. It will be up to us to keep it that way.