I'm opposed to taxing personal income, or frankly even corporate income, for that matter. Goods and services should be directly taxed. Sorry. Public benefits payments should never be withheld from wages, but also paid directly by the supposed 'beneficiaries' themselves, just as they would for their car insurance. That particularly goes for medicare and other welfare programs, and Social Security; directly paid just as they do with their taxes, now.
we weren't the "producer";
You're trying to argue that America was not manufacturer to the world following WW II. Fine. It's something so obvious that it should be equally obvious that we'll have to agree to disagree.
The VAT would be far worse than today's income tax;which I'm also against and what it changed to a flat tax.
Yes,in the late 1940s and the 1950s,America manufactured far more goods than it does today; however,we were NOT the world's supplier! We were the world's LENDER.And Americans WERE buying many cheap goods from Japan back then;not to mention some very expensive stuff from Italy and France and England.