[pissant]

Hugh better hope Romney doesn't come out in support of the fair tax. He'll find himself doing another violent 180 spin. Just as he did on amnesty after Mitt started sounding more like Tancredo.

[GeronL]

I favor the Low Tax or No Tax approach

[xcamel]

FYI

[Terpfen]

Put simply, the imposition of a massive new sales tax --at least 30 percent but probably much higher-- on every product consumed in the United States and accompanied by the simultaneous repeal of the federal income tax code is a risky and deeply dangerous attempt to sell simplicity to a tax weary public.

There's a little bit of spin here. The Fair Tax, in order to achieve revenue-neutral income to the Treasury, would have to be set at 23%. The 30% number arises when you add in state taxes to the final retail bill, but state tax rates are irrelevant to federal gubmint tax rates. (Unfortunately.)

Solution: set the national sales tax at a rate lower than 23% and cut federal spending. Which is the entire goal of the Fair Tax, to achieve lower federal spending while making Americans completely aware of how much they REALLY pay in tax.

That all said, the Fair Tax is never getting enacted anyway, so who cares? I think Hugh is just trying to get some royalty revenue. IMO, he should have written a book advocating a tax policy he likes better, rather than attacking a tax policy that's never going to see the light of day. What's Hugh in favor of, lowered rates in our current tax system? A flat income tax?

[SECURE AMERICA]

Fair Tax?
No such animal exists.
A tax is someone taking something from you to support something you may not benefit from or support.
I do not suport abortion but my tax dollars do.
Someone may not support war, any war Quakers etc.But their tax dollars do.
So you need to get away from the idea that any type taxation can ever be fair.
What it needs to be is SIMPLE and LOW.Period...
No one should have topay another person to have their taxes done. That is the most asinine situation I ever heard of...

[stop_fascism]

The only “fair tax” is land rent taxation. People as diverse as Leo Tolstoy, Mark Twain, Winston Churchill, Milton Friedman and William Buckley agreed on the basic logic of this tax. If you’re interested, here’s a place to start, http://www.groundswellusa.org/thekey.htm

[sbhitchc]

Fair Tax = National Budget/# of Residences in the USA

Imagine how fast spending would decrease.

[cripplecreek]

I don’t have any real feelings on fair tax either way but the real problem we face today is spending.

[Always Right]

I think I have written that book 20 times over over that last 10 years.

[Alex Murphy]

IMO the problem with a "fair tax" is that it's only "fair" to the single wage-earners who have no dependents and no mortgages. Their taxes will go down, but all the married-with-two-kids-and-a-mortgage wage earners will see their federal taxes go up.

Find someone who declares 80-100K gross income on his/her taxes, who also has two dependents under 17 and a mortgage over 150K. Ask them what their effective federal tax rate is, on that 80-100K they earn. It's not 23% - it's more like 15% or less, after they get done claiming all of their federal deductions. A flat tax of 20+% will cost them dearly, and provide yet another government deterrent to the Traditional American Nuclear Family.

As a former employer of mine once told me, "take a good look at the income tax laws, before you tell me there's no such thing as social engineering."

[TADSLOS]

Fair Tax ping.

[goldstategop]

The income tax is the most intrusive expression of Big Government. It can't be reformed; its got to go. The Fair Tax represents a return to the system of taxation that existed when this country was founded. Its a tax on consumption rather than a tax on income, which is a socialist idea. You should not be taxed on how much or how little you have but instead on what you spend. That's why I support the Fair Tax.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[Finny]

Hugh has lost so much credibility with me -- and I was a major fan of his for years after I first discovered him in late 2000 -- that I'm tempted to think, "If he thinks it's a bad idea ... it's probably a good idea."

[Apple Pan Dowdy]

So, does this guy actually lay out his argument anywhere..... or does he just pompously tell us to read the book?

Somehow I do not trust him. It seems his motives are to sell the book, not to push his cause.

[tnlibertarian]

I admit the current income tax may be better than the Fair Tax. But, since we’ve tried the income tax for a while, let’s try the Fair Tax for the next 96 years and compare.

[EternalVigilance]

serious and thoroughgoing tax reform, including lower and flatter tax rates

IOW, Hugh Hewitt, RINO extraordinaire, is for the communist-inspired income tax, and nothing but more deckchair arranging on that Titantic.

Which shows that he isn't "serious," and that, as usual, his thinking is far from "thoroughgoing."

[yazoo]

Since I already pay almost 30 percent of my income in fed taxes I see no problem with the FT. For me the issue is I can decide, when I consume a product, whether the added cost of the tax makes it worth it for me to buy the item. It puts control over my money back in my hands. Furthermore, it would take huge amounts of power away from the federal government, since they wouldn’t be able to give tax breaks to those they support and increase taxes on those they don’t like. Just the savings in not having to file income taxes every year would be huge.

[mo]

Sure beats the heck out of the current nightmare...

[taildragger]

The question to me is has the Fair Tax been Prototyped and tried? I you look to the Euro VAT Taxes I'd say it's a failure.

Conversely, we are up to what 22 or 26 countries with a Flat Tax and they are kicking our a$$ in term of GDP growth.

Someone needs to tell Thomas Freidman the world isn't flat, but the road to national success might be via a tax that is...

[xcamel]

A) The FT is a completely altruistic quest
B) The Govenrnment will magically loose it propensity to tinker
C) All the people you never trusted before will be completely trustworthy now
D) 30,000 Treasury Dept employees will magically disappear
E) You will “Git Yer Hole Paychex”
F) Tax rates never go up
G) Pay rates never go down
H) People just love double digit sales tax rates
I) Used food and personal items are good things
J) Social engineering will magically disappear
K) The rich don’t pay taxes
L) Prebates and Prefunds aren’t really welfare
M) Retirees should take a hosing for no good reason
N) Getting $77 worth of goods for $100 is OK with you
O) Paying 30% tax on medical care is a great idea
P) You believe the Government should tell you what a “necessity” is
Q) Bureaucrats will always know what the "right" poverty rate is
R) The rest of the modern world is clueless about tax policy
S) Good tax policy can be pro-re-gressive depending on the argument at the time
T) Revenue neutrality is more important than spending control
U) Talk Show Hosts are the best brain trust for tax policy
V) There is no "wizard behind the curtain" but those three Texans..
W) $20 million plus only buys "the truth"
X) Asking tough questions makes you a "Marxist"
Y) Asking tough questions makes you guilty of "spreading lies and disinformation"
Z) Debate only requires insulting and attacking people who ask tough questions
AA) There’s no such thing as a black market.
AB) Living like a hermit is the best way to beat the taxman.
AC) Companies will immediately deduct all the embedded taxes from what they sell.
AD) Pretzyl logic is your friend.

[CharacterCounts]

It is impossible to have a fair tax unless the government first has fair spending. This country needs a constitutional amendment enjoining the federal government from enacting any spending bill which does not directly benefit the entire country. No special projects for special people and special states.