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You equate caviar-stuffed lobster and ramen noodles. I've had both (minus the caviar). They are not the same.

If I have $50, and you have $5, and together we go to Wendy's to each buy the same burger costing $4.50 with a 20% sales tax; who gets to eat, and who doesn't?

Or, to put it in terms of income: if I make $150k, and you make $30k, and we each buy the same $20k car with a 20% sales tax; who pays a greater percentage of their income (wealth) as tax?

You equate caviar-stuffed lobster and ramen noodles. I’ve had both (minus the caviar). They are not the same.
.... If I have $50, and you have $5, and together we go to Wendy’s to each buy the same burger costing $4.50 with a 20% sales tax; who gets to eat, and who doesn’t?.....

I guess I will have to buy a cheaper burger, whats the problem?

... Or, to put it in terms of income: if I make $150k, and you make $30k, and we each buy the same $20k car with a 20% sales tax; who pays a greater percentage of their income (wealth) as tax?......

Um what difference does it make, they both pay the same percentage, a fair tax. Whether you spend you 150k on a car or not is up to you, if you decide to buy a 20k car and save the difference or buy a more expensive burger with your money how can that be unfair?

If a wealthy person's consumption is modest he does save on taxes but his frugality allows him to save his earnings from redistribution by force of government decree. He could donate those savings to charity or to his family and friends. He could blow it in a casino if he wants. He earned it! He could invest his savings into companies (that hire more workers with that growth capital), but he would want to share in their profit. If he and all the wealthy are modest in their consumption, however, only those workers making Escorts would have jobs and the Cadillac builders would have to find something else to do. Folks make choices based on their resources. Almost half of the population now pays no income tax because they are below the threshold. The folks who pay nothing benefit from the government to the same extent or more than the person paying 40% currently (fed income only).

Shouldn't everyone, who is able, help pull the wagon?

But back to your Wendy's example. Say it costs Wendy's $4 bucks to make that burger and they sell it for $5 to turn a profit. With a lowering of the tax costs and not just the amount paid but the man hours spent calculating exemptions from our 70,000 page tax codes, it would reduce the cost to produce that burger and they could sell it cheaper to make the same profit. If they didn't pass on those savings to the customers we would, being thrifty, eat at burger king who does pass on the lower tax cost burden.
Prices go down as the tax code is simplified.

Of course, If every one earns the same and buys the same items we would have no inequality. We would have communism.

...who pays a greater percentage of their income (wealth) as tax?

You are right! You DON'T know much about taxation! Equating income with wealth is a VERY bad mistake made by many but it is VERY instructive never-the-less.

Warren Buffet, a name we have heard a lot recently, takes in BILLIONS of dollars annually but takes only $100, 000 as his personal compensation which he pays income taxes on. There are many more who do the exact same thing. (Again that little What is the definition of "income" conundrum arises!) They live very well, consuming like crazy, but pay very little if anything in income taxes. With a sales tax in place that would not be possible!

If I have $50, and you have $5, and together we go to Wendy's to each buy the same burger costing $4.50 with a 20% sales tax; who gets to eat, and who doesn't?

Why is the guy with $50 going to Wendy's when he can have a fine meal at an upscale restaurant?
Why is the guy with $5 going to Wendy's when he can't afford it?

Why are either of them wasting their money on greaseburgers when they could be visiting my website (see tagline), where even the "poor" guy can stretch his fiver for two days of food, and the "rich" guy can eat nice meals for two weeks and _still_ enjoy a bottle of bourbon?

Your analogy is just as absurd as sending the guy with $50 to Café Anglais and complaining that he doesn't get to eat. (Story is a dinner there runs around 1000 francs.)

Likewise the car analogy: why is the guy making $30k buying a $20k car? Why does someone have to pay a higher tax just because someone else wants to spend beyond their means? (which I write as a guy who drives a 12-year-old car I bought 6 years ago for $1000.) Or, to reverse it, why is the guy making $150k buying a $20k car instead of a $100k one? should he get jailed for tax evasion?

If you're living a 5x or 10x lifestyle, living on the inverse of that isn't going to cut it. For someone living a life where $50 lunches are the norm, spending $5 at Wendy's isn't going to cut it and for a reason (you don't take big-money clients out for cheap burgers); likewise, someone who pays 2/3rds their income on a car isn't going to cut it and for a reason (now he CAN'T go even to Wendy's).

Upshot: people tend to spend on par with their income. If you're making a half-million a year, you tend toward the $50 lunch and $90k cars; if you're making $50k a year, you tend toward the $5 lunch and $15k cars - and under a flat tax, the taxation is about the same fraction just like cars & lunches are.