The problem with your argument is the presumption that without these kind of bold action we will ever see any of the tax eradication that you're talking about.
Just think how difficult a time, with a republican president, and republican controlled house and senate, we had in getting any kind of tax cut through. I simply do not see any significant tax cuts on the horizon,barring something that will shake the current system up in a major way. I think that's why there is the discussion of the sales tax.
Bottomline, am I convinced this idea by Keyes will work, not yet. But I do think it's a very interesting idea with a lot of potential, and I applaud him for presenting it so we can discuss it, rather than strike him down because we have knee jerk negative reaction to a slogans like "reparations".
I'm making no such presumption. It will take bold actions, but this isn't a bold action, this is a WRONG action, it creates a situation where for 2 generations any attempt to eliminate taxes would be doomed to failure.
Actually we got all Bush's tax cuts through, at the level he targeted, not at the level he initially proposed but that's because he's smart enough to overshoot his target and let the Dems pull the shot down accurate. Check his speeches about 2 months before the tax cut proposals and compare them to what was acually passed.
Bottomline I'm convinced this idea would have exactly the opposite effect. There's no way anybody could get away with eliminating or even reducing taxes when 12% of the population is having its ego boosted by how much the rest of us are paying. When our tax burden becomes tied to our guilt for slavery it can't go anywhere but up.