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Can you help me understand the strategy of getting something done about what you perceive as the primary problem with government finances?

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You can stick your condescension up your a$$. You pin-headed "intellectuals" (note the quotation marks) looking down on everybody who disagrees with you make me sick. As I said a couple of responses ago, the real problem is socialistic spending. (You were copied in that reply, so I KNOW you saw it. You're now just being an a$$hole.) I'll explain it here again in case I wasn't clear enough or didn't speak high enough to reach your cloud:

Listen carefully....Were it not for the reckless social spending, taxes would not have been raised so high. And unless that spending is checked and turned around, it won't matter how the taxes are collected, the country will continue to deficit-spend itself into oblivion on "Bridge to Nowhere" type projects.

You think the so-called "Fair Tax" is the answer. The be-all to end-all. Well, you and all your co-followers are totally deceived. While you spin your wheels with this excrement of an idea, spending is still spiraling out of control. From what I've read, there are already exclusions to this tax proposal. The Fair Tax rebate is just a tip of the iceberg. Before long, all sorts of lobbyists will get their exclusions in there and this "Fair Tax" will wind up as unfair and complex as the existing tax collection setup is. We'll be right back where we started. Dispute that!!! I say, if you're going to do this, remove that rebate. Make it just like Sales Taxes are today...no exemptions, no rebates...in other words a FLAT TAX that everyone pays no matter what. The way it's currently written, replaces a graduated/progressive income tax rate with a graduated/progressive sales tax rate. NO DIFFERENCE.

And in the meantime, you will have thrown the whole country into turmoil trying to figure out how to deal with (i.e. cheat) this new system. Take away those exemptions and deductions and the rate wouldn't have to be so high. 23% is astronomical and ripens the program for abuse, deceit and cheating. Couple that with a State Tax of 7 or 8% in most metropolitan areas and you're talking over 30%. The average income tax rate RIGHT NOW is much lower than that. How is that better for the taxpayers. Where's the pressure going to come from to reduce that rate? If the politicians keep jacking up the spending, how can the rates be reduced? Do you REALLY believe ANY State will rescind its income tax once this is instated. If so, that bridge I offered you, just quadrupled in price. I got me a real sucker on the line and I'm going to milk him for all he's got. A tax once collected is ALWAYS collected. Name me ONE, just ONE, that was rescinded. Ronald Reagan reduced tax rates, Congress spent more. National Debt went up. George H. W. Bush raised taxes. Congress spent more. National Debt went up. Slick Willie raised taxes. Congress spent more. National Debt went up. George W. Bush reduced tax rates, Congress spent more. National Debt went up. Notice a pattern? Spending... Spending... Spending ...Period.

I still say our liberal/communist friends will cog the works and we'll be stuck paying both taxes. Or some future liberal bunch of a$$hole Congress-Critters will re-institute an "emergency" income tax, thus sticking us with both. We can easily start a new tax collection scheme, but try to get rid of one after you start paying both and they start spending from both. Good luck with that one.

For the last time...IT'S SPENDING THAT NEEDS TO BE CUT, THEN TAXES CAN BE CUT. NO MATTER HOW THEY ARE COLLECTED, NO MATTER WHAT THE SOURCE, INCOME OR SALES TAX, THE RATES CAN NOT COME DOWN SIGNIFICANTLY UNLESS AND UNTIL SPENDING COMES DOWN.

"As I said a couple of responses ago, the real problem is socialistic spending."

Indeed, you have identified the problem quite clearly. What you have not done is to articulate a solution.

"For the last time...IT'S SPENDING THAT NEEDS TO BE CUT, THEN TAXES CAN BE CUT. NO MATTER HOW THEY ARE COLLECTED, NO MATTER WHAT THE SOURCE, INCOME OR SALES TAX, THE RATES CAN NOT COME DOWN SIGNIFICANTLY UNLESS AND UNTIL SPENDING COMES DOWN."

Completely absent from your emotional outburst is any strategy to address the problem of out of control spending. You have made it clear that you don't accept that making the taxes that we all pay more visible is a positive step in the right direction. However, you seem to have no clue what to do about the problem other than to vent on FR.

Good luck to you. I hope that approach works. However, I'm not holding my breath.