The Payroll tax would be eliminated ...
These taxes are merely replaced not eliminated. Payroll, Corporate Profit and Personal Income taxes are REPLACED by the FairTax ... and it collects the same amount of tax money (supposedly.) Some will gain, some will lose. The economy will suffer, goods will cost more, the money supply is likely to be inflated ... savings will be devalued, evasion will rise, the rate will increase, most will have LESS of idea of how much tax they pay ... that's "my point."
Windfall Profits Tax? ...
Where did that come from? Profit tax = Corporate Profit Tax (but some here blow a gasket when I say "Corporate Profit Tax" claiming that corporations aren't the only business entities that pay tax. True enough; but all the rest pay Personal Income Tax, not profit tax. Anyway, I mean the Corporate Income (Profit) tax.
Entitlement reform is not gonna happen.
You are entitled to your opinion, but I, for one do not intend to stand idly by to be raped and pillaged by an ongoing financial disaster. Entitlement reform, to me, is FAR more important than whether I pay may tax at the register or out of my paycheck.
I don't mind the progressiveness of the FairTax precisely b/c I control it.
Actually you can't. You think you can control your tax bite ... and maybe, on a limited basis you can ... but you can do that now as well. The Progressivity of a tax system is related to the effective rate structure. If the rate varies in direct proportion to the taxed amount, then the structure is progressive ... no matter what YOU, as an individual spend. You are the one ranting about how no one pays taxes except the rich ... well that's a statement about the progressivity of the system. You are advocating for one the worsens the problem you claim is so severe.
...Lobbyists...
If you think the FairTax changes the desire to lobby, the opportunity to lobby, the willingness of politicians to be lobbied, the ability of Congress to alter the tax code, the ability to exempt certain new categories of spending, tier the rate, tier the prebate, eliminate the prebate, ... and on and on then you truly have no understanding of politics and government. While the FairTax might provide a system "reset" the system is fundamentally unchanged by it.
Claim what you will about the economic ramification of the FairTax, or its distributional aspects, but suggesting it will fundamentally alter the nature of people, politicians, lobbyists, and government is pure fantasy.