[socialismisinsidious]

Thanks for making my point. The 60K page tax code is a mess of loopholes, class envy and stealth taxes but hey why don't we just keep tinkering with it and maybe we can make it work.

Trying to figure out how a story will end does not tell you how the story will end....the problem is: sit around make up things that might happen AND come up with no other options.

Don't go with the fair tax (or any other reform?) b/c it may become what we already have?...learning from your mistakes does nothing if you don't change anything! Dang that 60K page tax code was a bad socialist idea but we better not change anything or we might end up with a socialist 60K page tax code. sheesh.

[Cheburashka]

You’re taking the wrong lesson from the example.

The correct lesson is: when you give the government an easy way to confiscate more and more of your wealth, you can expect the government to actually do so. Since they can raise the rate any time and they hold a gun to the head of the retailer (collect this money from the customer when you sell them anything, then send it to us, or we’ll put you out of business), you can expect the national sales tax rate to do one thing, like Social Security Taxes did: go up and up and up over time.

Social Security Taxes were and are transparent to the employee: the amount he was paying (what was withheld) was listed on every pay stub. That didn’t stop Social Security Taxes from going up and up and up. Of course they never see the half of their taxes that never gets into their gross pay, the "employer pays half" that the employee really pays, but never sees.

But this is all theoretical. The Republicans controlled Congress from 1995-2001 and 2003-2007 and never got this done. I suspect I will not see another Republican Congress in my lifetime, although I pray I do. And no Demonrat Congress will ever do this. They're stupid and HATE THE RICH!!! is too deeply imprinted in their psyches, and they plan tax law to punish the RICH!!!, or what they think will punish the RICH!!!

Gods help us if they ever get smart.

Of course, this thread has been getting me to think again about the issue, which I once thought about long ago. I could actually support a national sales tax if:

The constitutional amendment that abolishes the Sixteenth Amendment (you are planning on that, aren't you?) also says that the National Sales Tax can never be more than 23%, unless specifically approved by a specific vote of the American people, and that increase will be only for a specific time period, never more than eight years, and the rate reverts to 23% at the end of the time period, unless there is a new vote by the American people. The temporary increase provisions allow the U.S. to finance a war or other crisis situation, if that should be necessary. Congress will have the authority to lower the tax rate below 23%, if they want. Fat chance they will ever use that.