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Number 1 option - REDUCE SPENDING! Reduce spending at both Federal and State and Local level.

Hasn't happened under the last 100 years with the income tax inplace with half the voting public on the dole paying no tax at all. What makes you figure it will suddenly happen now, with no change in the tax system.

So many Americans paying little or no federal taxes makes for a natural spending constituency. It's like me in the restaurant: What do I care about extravagance if you're footing the bill?
---Walter Williams

Number 2 - VAT is a bad thing. I saw it first hand during the 3 years I lived in the UK (Northern Ireland). VAT/National Sales Tax are similar, though they operate a bit differently. And all countries with VAT also have HIGH income tax rates. Stuff in England costs about double (US dollar equivalent) what it does here in the US.

No argument there, hide the mechnics of major parts of a nation's tax system behind the corporate veil, just hides the economic burden government places on the citizen, it certainly doesn't remove it.

Number 3 - My opinion is that some sort of a Flat Income Taxmight be the best alternative to the present system. Any legislation instituting a flat tax must also require major reorganization/reduction/curtailment-of-power in the IRS.

Any form of income tax, by its very nature, requires a large IRS to administer it, that is not going away under a Flat Tax.

Any tax system that relies on the individual or citizen to assess and report his own tax, will have a large bureaucracy to make sure the assessment, no matter what the size of the form it is reported on, is accurate, truthful, and complete. In fact the less information in a tax return the more powerful an IRS will become to force compliance.

Number 4 - the only argument for National Sales Tax is that it would tend to put US manufacturing on a more equal footing with imports because it would require the same tax rate on incoming goods. Perhaps someone has a suggestion on how to accomplish this without the adverse effects on the rest of us. Note that EC countries avoid VAT on exports. But we can't tax those imports with duties to match the VAT avoided. This in effect is an EC subsidy on exports, but we can't do the same on our exports. Inequitable!

There are actually many more arguments for a National Retail Sales Tax than this, one very big one is to get the IRS out of the private lives and financial privacy of the citizen's home. A second is the very large costs imposed upon manufacturing and business in general by the income/payroll tax system that impede the economy and reduce the living standards of everyone, what ever the format of its forms or number of tax bracket in it.