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"The federal government just had no effective means beyond civil war to enforce a tax on the state that is adamant about not paying, as a point of fact neither does the Constitution for that matter."

-- If that is the case, then how the hell is the NRST going to be collected by the states? I know I know, the Feds will step in and collect it for them. But can't that solution be applied to taxation of states? By refusing to pay their share of the tax burden, a state is waiving their responsibility to collect federal taxes, and a bit of their sovereignty. If that happens, residents of that state (or states) will be subject to a direct tax imposed by Congress equal to that state's burden. If that state's tax burden is $50B, then Congress will impose a direct tax on that state sufficient to collect it. If excess taxes are collected, they will be refunded to those residents. Under this scenario, a State has to pay it's taxes either way. But the state can either choose to retain it's sovereignty and decide how it wants to collect taxes, or it can waive it's sovereignty and let the Federal Government decide. That's a pretty good reason to pay up.

And if states are already collecting the tax, I don't think it would be long before they decided to give themselves MORE sovereignty by transferring certain programs from the Feds to the States. After that, we would end up with states offering radically different types of government, ranging from socialist to welfare state to Lassie-Faire. With free population among the states, the socialist states and some of the welfare states would have to put up walls to keep their populations, just like East Germany had to. Since that would be illegal, states would have to adopt more lassie-faire policies to compete with the other states. This would move all states away from socialist/welfare policies.

I don't really see any problems with this argument, at least not any that wouldn't already arise under an NRST collected by the states.

If that happens, residents of that state (or states) will be subject to a direct tax imposed by Congress equal to that state's burden.

That then becomes the key issue. For just as in the 1813 direct tax provision above, it is the landowner that would get stuck with the ultimate tax bill which requires an infra-structure of federal surveyors/accessors in place to assure the capacity of the federal government to collect tax in that manner. A point forseen and echoed from the founders.

Federalist #12:

"A nation cannot long exist without revenues. Destitute of this essential support, it must resign its independence, and sink into the degraded condition of a province. This is an extremity to which no government will of choice accede. Revenue, therefore, must be had at all events. In this country, if the principal part be not drawn from commerce, it must fall with oppressive weight upon land."

Any source of revenue, other than property tax to the national govenment, would require a parallel effort on the part of the national government to track individual incomes etc. for potential collection of tax due requiring individual income reporting and an IRS like capacity. A post-hoc tax of such a nature would not be an acceptable solution in such circumstance.

The NRST provides for the potential of default by a state by assuring the tax is specific (a retail sales tax ) with an infrastructure already in place and makes provision for the national government to step in as administrator/collector when a state is shown to be in default. This avoids the the need of a large bureau or imposition of a federal tax upon property.