[OneWingedShark]

It needs to go and be replaced with a sales tax.

The more I think about it the more a national sales tax becomes a bad idea: for one, it will further cement the idea that the federal government can be involved in intrastate commerce; for another, given the ubiquitousness of computational machinery they could make the sales tax of varying rates dependent on who the person is or the income they make... they could store all the pertinent info in a chip and have it embedded into the right hand.

[Principled]

First - nobody is talking about a "national sales tax". But lots of people are talking about a nation RETAIL sales tax. There is a big difference - while I realize that a lot of people don't think about that detail, it's important enough to point out. For example, a national RETAIL sales tax has business paying NO taxes by statute [and everyone knows they just increase prices, lower wages, or reduce ROI to pay taxes.]

...it will further cement the idea that the federal government can be involved in intrastate commerce;

The nrst allows states to take over the collection [and pays them to do it.] So it does not cement the idea.

...they could make the sales tax of varying rates dependent on who the person is or the income they make...

You have the worldview of an income taxer. Retailers won't know who the buyer is or how much he makes b/c none of that matters anymore. Under an nrst, the amount you make is irrelevant - the amount you spend is.

... they could store all the pertinent info in a chip and have it embedded into the right hand.

You already have a chip in your hand. Look closely. wow.