Dear RightFighter,
"When people can see clearly the cost of the government, they'll begin to question why those costs are so high."
Oh, heck. Every one of my employees gets a paystub every payday telling them precisely how much they paid for federal income, state income, and federal payroll taxes.
If they can't figure out what they're paying now, I'm a little skeptical that they'll notice much once the NSRT is in place for a while. I also think it's likely that the folks who really have no clue how much they're paying are folks who typically aren't earning much. These are folks who also benefit most from government spending. They won't look for a roll-back in government spending, just ways to shift the tax burden off themselves.
Anyway, I suspect that retailers will advertise the base price in small print, the tax in small print, and the total price, with the tax included, in large print, to make sure that folks don't misunderstand how much they need to bring to the register. If the law permits (and I expect this will be one of the first changes if the final bill does not permit), retailers will only print the final cost, or will be permitted to note the NSRT amount somewhere in fine print. And here's why: because if folks realize how much of their purchase is the NSRT, consumption will fall, and sellers of stuff will suffer. So, the sellers will look to relief from Congress to permit them to conceal the tax.
Anyway, pass the NSRT in roughly its current form, and the next thing you'll have is the liberal demagogues who will rightly note that the rich are doing very well under this NSRT, thank you very much (which is fine by me, but is always something that sticks in the craw of a significant percentage of the population, including, seemingly, many folks here at FR).
And the cry will go up to reduce the burden "on the working man" by raising taxes on the "very rich."
Since the 16th amendment isn't getting repealed before this sucker goes into effect, I expect that the libs will go for a "modest" reinstatement of the income tax on the "very rich," to bring down the NSRT rate, or to exempt food, or medical stuff (or health insurance premiums - in my company, the average health insurance premium is about $10,000 per year - the NSRT on that alone will be $3,000 - ouch), or whatever.
Or, we'll see libs introduce differential rates. "It's supposed to be a FAIR tax! How is it fair to charge poor people the same tax for their new car as rich people? Rich people buy decadent [we've seen that word thrown around on this thread already by alleged CONSERVATIVES] luxury cars. Let's make the NSRT 40% instead of 30% on cars over $50,000!"
Heck, it wasn't tough to get a 10% excise tax on cars over $30,000 under a REPUBLICAN president, along with a 10% excise tax on pleasure boats. People will (probably already have) forget about the disatrous effects on the boat-building industry from that last one.
See, there are two points of view represented in these threads: one that says that human nature will be altered by going from an income tax to a decadence, uh,... er,... consumption tax; and one that says that human nature will not be altered by collecting the same money in a different way.
One view is that politicians will stop being politicians, that people who avoid and evade taxes now will stop avoiding them and evading them in the future, and that somehow, taxing consumption heavily won't suppress consumption.
The other view is that our federal Congress comprises 535 full-time politicians who have to have something to occupy themselves, and thousands of paid lobbyists who are continuously suggesting "improvements" on things to these 535 politicians, to fill their time and give purpose and meaning to their otherwise meaningless and useless lives.
Of COURSE politicians will continue to tinker with the tax code!! LOL!!! What ELSE are they going to do?? Of COURSE lobbyists will develop arguments that sound reasonable to tens of millions of folks on how to make the Fair Tax even FAIRER. How do you think the income tax got to where it is?
As long as you have a honey pot with $2 trillion in it, you'll always draw a lot of flies. And nastier creatures.
And of COURSE, if you tinker with the code to take from the relatively-few well-off, but give a break to the relatively-more less well-off, you will gain majority support for your proposals. That's why the marginal income tax rate once exceeded 90%.
Most folks will think that any proposed change to the Fair Tax that gives them more at the expense of folks who are not like them will be FAIRER, so, why not?
sitetest
THE SKY IS FALLING!!! THE SKY IS FALLING!!! ANd you really do sound a lot like Chicken Little.
Your employees (and you) may see their pay stub and shrug, but what they DON'T see is the costs of taxes embedded into prices in everything that they buy presently. That's why it's called a hidden tax - can't be easily seen. And that's why you need to see the cascading tax cost example in #399 which uses your treasured Subchapter C corporation actual tax rates for 2001.
You can "expect" anything you like in the Fairtax bill, but the bill is what it is and what it is presently can be read by everyone by going to this site:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:H.R.25:
The language is very clear and understandable. Since the income tax is repealed by the bill it will be more than a tad difficult for the demagogues to rant about "the rich" with much effect as income can no longer tracked. Similarly for your differential rate nonsense. Your class warfare efforts are clearly full of beans.
With your last sentence, you show that you have confused the FairTax with the income tax:
"Most folks will think that any proposed change to the Fair Tax that gives them more at the expense of folks who are not like them will be FAIRER, so, why not?" That's income-tax-speak.