“As stated above, the tax is revenue neutral so the overall tax rate does not change. The government still swipes the same amount of productivity and all you’ve done is shift the burden somewhere.”
I picked this post out of many on this thread in which you asserted that out of control spending is the only issue facing the country today and therefore only measures which directly and immediately reduce spending are worth considering. You conveniently ignore congressional rules which require that tax reform proposals be revenue neutral.
You also ignore the indirect benefits that having a more visible and transparent tax regimen would have on spending.
More importantly, however, is that you ignore a number of adverse economic trends which MUST be addressed:
1. the spiral of complexity and higher and higher compliance costs which plague the current system,
2. the enormous trade deficit and ongoing erosion of our manufacturing sector,
3. the extremely low personal savings rate,
4. the federal budget deficit,
5. the crisis in SS & Medicare
What do all of these adverse economic trends have in common?
A. They are all unsustainable,
B. They are all exacerbated by our current dysfunctional tax system.
Other than spending restraint, nowhere in this thread does any FairTax opponent advance an alternative approach to dealing with the economic challenges that this country faces. We saw in 2000-2001 (with the tech stock bubble bursting) and are now experiencing (with the bursting of the housing bubble) what happens when adverse economic trends are ignored. We have a government which uses such crises as an excuse to spend trillions of $$$ that we don’t have and pass the bill along to future generations. When that approach is challenged, the response is: “you don’t expect us to do nothing, do you?”
No, we expect you to be more pro-active and address these adverse trends before they reach the crisis stage. The FairTax is an opportunity to address multiple adverse economic trends comprehensively and effectively.