I don't see any evidence of that. People know that government takes a huge chunk. The biggest expenses of government are the entitlements, and converting to a "Fair Tax" or any other type of supposedly more visible tax is not going to take away people's addiction to those things. The only way that we'll ultimately be successful at doing so is by working the system around so that individuals are paying into their own SS and Medicare accounts, instead of having the current generation of workers pay for the current generation of retirees. Once that's done, then people will be more apt to ask themselves why they're going through the government and using its rules to save for their retirement, when they could instead just be saving on their own and setting their own rules.
You give people more credit than they deserve. You must be surrounded by politically astute friends and relatives.
I've got a sister that insists she pays NOTHING in taxes because her income is low enough that the EITC completely refunds even the SS/M taxes she paid.
The concept that everything she purchases includes the taxes that the supply-chain remitted is completely beyond her. She votes for every new social program that comes along -- because she "won't have to pay for it, because she doesn't make enough to pay taxes." In the last Cali election, she voted for an increase in property taxes on rental property to pay for "free" pre-school. Why not ? She doesn't own rental property. Do you suppose she'd make the connection if her landlord raised the rent on her townhouse ?
Politicians don't under-estimate human stupidity. They count on it.
You have but to look at the IRS breakdowns of who pays most of the taxes to see that a few are paying most of the taxes.
Certainly most of he others are clever enough to realize that if a handful pays 90% of the taxes it leaves them "off the hook". I think plenty of people believe that even though they ignore the artificially increased prices caused by the income based tax system.