Why, when reading your posts, does this (below) old addage come to mind?
If you are not part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem.
What is your proposal - and how does it stack up against this possible solution.
PS - If you favor status quo - don't worry about the point by point comparison, it isn't needed.
The biggest problem is controlling spending and I don't see a 30% sales tax as a solution but a bigger problem. If I were to design new tax system it would be a combination of income and sales tax, with a much lower and flatter income tax and a much lower sales tax without the prebate but one that does exclue food and housing. There are three major problems with this proposal, besides all the dishonesty that is done pimping it:
1. It delinks Social Security from payroll. It will make social security into a bigger entitlement program than it is today, where the people who pay into it aren't the ones who neccessarily get the benefit. For instance, retirees who have already paid a lifetime of social security taxes, will now have to pay social security taxes everytime they buy something. They are paying social security taxes on their social security benefits.
2. The fairtax prebate is a new $600 Billion entitlement program in which every American gets a monthly check whether they pay taxes or not. This will be the biggest entitlement program ever.
3. 30% tax is too high and the way the tax is designed it can only result in an immediate 20% inflation. The high rate will increase tax avoidance and initially have a big negative impact on the economy.
There are several legitimate advantages to a sales tax, but doing an all out switch is a real dumb idea. I don't oppose reform, I oppose dumb ideas.