[AaronInCarolina]

If you want to lower your tax burden (hidden or otherwise) you first need to lower government spending. The method of collection is secondary.

No argument from at all on reducing government spending. You're preaching to the choir there. I still believe that if consumers had to face a 25%-30% consumption tax on purchases (which by the way would be more evenly distributed across the electorate rather than forcing a small group of people to bear a disproportionate burden as it occurs now) they would be more aware of just how much the government is spending and since more people will bear this burden, more people will be less docile about letting the government get away with it.

As long as we can force a group of people, who in total have little voting power to reject it, to bear a disproportionate amount of the federal tax burden, the masses who currently largely escape the effects of government overspending are content with the status-quo. They may not be so content if they have to pay 25%-30% for each purchase.

[Dimples]

Note that you are focused on Personal Income Taxation and not integrating payroll taxation in your distributional impact assessment. If, as you suggest, the real problem is that the income tax is progressive, one rather simple solution is to flatten it ... and I'd agree with you on that.

Be aware, that one of the aspects of the FairTax that advocates tout is it's progressivity (the effective rate rises with spending due to the effect of the "prebate".)

Ultimately, any method of taxation who's collection is implemented as a part of normal commerce (income or consumption) is doomed to become normal and accepted ... it disappears into the noise of every day life.

If you want to truly impact an individual's sense of the impact of the size of government, then make the collection of taxes a periodic "lump sum" event OUTSIDE the monotony of normal commerce. Have the Taxpayer "write the check."