Dear Principled,
"What is your explanation as to why after 95 years we haven't had an nrst on top of our income tax?"
Because the genius of the American system is that it does not do easily what it has never been done before. That is to say, in the normal gridlock that the Founders built into our constitutional system, it's difficult to do a new thing.
However, once a thing is done (like imposing an income tax), it's easy to do again.
Thus, once an NRST is in place, it won't be too tough to re-impose an income tax on an "emergency basis" on the "rich only," because, well, it's been done before.
And before long, we'll have the worst of it all.
Thus, it's really necessary, BEFORE we let the genie of a national sales tax out of the bottle, to put a stake through the vampire of the income tax (how's that for a mixed metaphor? ;-) ).
"Once we see what it's like without the income tax, who would ever propose it?"
Folks who want more money for the government to spend. Like most of the folks in Congress. Unfortunately, even with Republican majorities in both houses of Congress, the folks who want to spend more, more, more are in the majority, not the minority.
"Point being that after 95 years there has been sufficient resistance to prevent a sales tax on top."
I think that once Congress passes an NRST, the new thing will have been done - imposing the NRST. That's the hard thing. The easy thing will be to bring back the income tax, especially on an "emergency basis" taxing "only the rich."
"...then by all means tell your rep."
My representative is Ben Cardin of Maryland. The last thing I want to do is give him ideas about another tax that Congress could pass.
sitetest
"... BEFORE we let the genie of a national sales tax out of the bottle, to put a stake through the vampire of the income tax ..."
In fact, that's exactly what the FairTax bill does - eliminates the income tax (and others), the corresponding tax code, the IRS (and its funding), and requires the income tax records to be destroyed. That's indeed a stake through the heart of the vampire.
Making some facile claim that it will merely be restarted by a Congressional finger-snap is hardly reasonable since once gone there will be a huge political quagmire to wade through and with enough votes to pass the FairTax there are certainly more than enough to keep the income tax from seeing the light of day during the 7 year repeal period or - quite possibly - even for good.
Once people live under the FairTax system they will rapidly grasp its benefits and refuse as a collective voting body to return to the income tax system. Having had the income tax in the past does not make it easier to restart it ... in fact, if anything it will make it more difficult since more people under the new FairTax system will be aware of more of the deficiencies of the income tax than ever before. There will certainly be no hue and cry to return to it.
So I certainly don't ascribe to your believe that the easiest thing is what's been done before since for that to be true it would have to mean that taxpayers at large like and approve of the income tax system - and nothing could be further from the truth.
The correct repeal track is the one we're presently on - pass the FairTax and then the simplified repeal bill either with or without the "taxing income is illegal" verbiage. That will make it much easier to pass the repeal bill as most people will greatly approve of the FairTax and the manner in which it functions.