"...Congress' continual dinkering and redefining income ..."
Your attempt to change the meaning of the post you were responding to (where the word "this" actually referred to the "income" as just shown) is a typical SQL tactic to try to alter what was said. Since the statement related to income redefinition, my response related to that - do away with income-based taxation completely and the "problem" of income redefinition is no longer with us.
With the FairTax any fiddling with the rate (since, keep in mind that income redefinition affects nothing now) affects all taxpayers and not just some subset since keep in mind if there were sufficient votes to pass the bill there are certainly enough to prevent the sort of political mischief that goes on now where rates - and/or other preferences can be hidden from many if not most taxpayers. With the FairTax these sort of alterations are out in the open and quite visible and affect the tax burden (rate) of each taxpayer. They can no longer be buried within thousands and thousands of pages of tax code and regulations in some dark bureaucratic corner. They are made quite apparent.
The public, having passed the bill, is certainly not going to sit idly by to watch being raised by congregational manipulation - and why should they since they can now clearly see that this is the game afoot - which presently is not at all apparent to them since so much of the tax burden is either hidden or indirect from the view of a taxpayer. With the FairTax the tax burden is open, apparent, and directly painful.
There will be greatly more individual motivation to keep the political pressure on to prevent much of this sort of nonsense since the tax effects are now much more direct and apparent to each taxpayer than at present.
That's very funny!!
The first think that will be manipulated will be the prebate. Even Boortz/Linder think that the Earned Income Tax Credit is bad, but then they go and propose a 'prebate'! That's Incredible. In order to make the 'FairTax' politically sellable, they add something very similar to our current mess. And they do this at the outset. Just Imagine when more people start begging Congress to start fiddling with the 'prebate' calculation. Why do you think that HALF of all personal income tax returns only account for 4% of income tax revenue. Because people cried poor, and Congress decided to play class warfare. Remember, there are more voters under $50,000 income/(or consumption) than there are above $200,000 income/consumption.
That is the real political dynamic. And I really doubt that that would change under a 'FairTax'.
P.S. I agree that the 'FairTax' burden would be "open, apparent, and directly painful." That is why I predict that MASSIVE evasion will take place. The only way around it would be a VAT, and we don't want that.