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"..but they will also receive 100% of their gross paycheck.And prices will go down! If any of you believe that, I have a bridge....."

SIGH .... for the 15th time, (pre-tax) prices of US PRODUCED GOODS will go down. Imports will be higher, as they should be.

You are getting to be just as disengenuous as Your Nightmare and LewisLynn.

OK. Let's look at the numbers and see if you can do basic addition and subtraction. For 2004 the FairTax base plus exports (I'm limiting it to that so that there is no squawking from the FairTaxers) was $11,582 billion. That is the total "price" of goods claimed to dropping after the FairTax is passed. The corporate income tax collected in 2004 was $190 billion, or 1.64% of "prices." The employer share of payroll taxes was $383 billion, or 3.31% of "prices." That's a total of 4.95%. Even if all of these taxes were incident on consumers (and virtually every economist believes they are not) that is no where near a 20-35% price drop.

Even if you add a ridiculous $200 billion in compliance costs you still are less than 7% of prices. You are $1.9 trillion away from enough costs to achieve a 23% price drop! The numbers don't add up.

The only way pre-tax prices can drop significantly with the FairTax is if nominal wages are reduced!

Come on, being disingenuous! The consumption in this country leans heavily on imports -- everyday clothes, furniture, toys, cars, small appliances. The retail stores are packed with imports. You conveniently and disingenuously forget that small thing!