Notice that the committee is charged with cobbing up another "progressive" (tax the hell out of the "rich") scheme. That is major part of the problem. The tax base is too narrow. The bottom of the income scale is sucking at the public tit while expecting the top end to finance the largesse. That needs to end. Government is spending entirely too much money on things where it has no legitimate business. Unless the spending is fixed, there is no taxation scheme that will be tolerable.
I agree with everyting you've said! My position is that the method of tax collection has everything to do with spending. When taxes are hidden and different amounts are taken from different groups, and nobody really knows what anyone else's tax burden is, it's easy to keep and increase taxes and hence spending.
But if taxes were visible, and everyone took the same hit, it would be harder to increase taxes and spending. INdeed if we ALL paid the same rate and it was ALL visible on every receipt, and we had to pull green money out of our pocket daily to feed the beast, then there will be downward pressure on taxes and hence spending. JMHO.