pigdog does have a point, the commission's retail tax was completely different than the fairtax proposal. The commission's retail tax was honest. Assuming the government can tax itself to raise revenues is not honest.
If that assumption were true, we could all get rich just by moving money from one pocket to another.
The Tax Panel evaluated some hypothetical retail sales tax that doesn't exist - that part is right.
Claiming that it shouldn't tax government, though, is quite incorrect since the income tax does so and all of the so-called flat tax plans do so as well. There is absolutely no rationale for NOT having the government tax itself since they do now. Not doing so would merely help the expansion of government - which is exactly the opposite of what anyone should want. The issue is not whether the taxing of government provides revenue or not, but whether it keeps the government from enlarging itself with a tax advantage compared to private businesses.