[BigV]

Hyoi, you seem quite firm in your adherence to these terms: "flat", "fair", and "floor". Don't you see that you can't have them all?

Let's start with flat. Pick your number, doesn't matter. Let's say, 20%, ok? If it were 20% for everyone, for **all** "income", then I contend that it's not fair. Because the poorest, as others have already pointed out, will be paying their one-fifth out of the food and rent money. Not good, certainly not fair.

So, you offer to provide a floor. Right away it's not flat anymore. It's got a big honkin' step right there at the beginning, can't you see that? I mean, if you're devoted to the strict concept of flat, then someone who's income is $100 less than the floor will pay nothing, and someone whose income is $100 over the floor will pay 20%. How is that flat? It's not.

Which brings us to fair. I believe a progressive system where people with higher incomes pay higher rates is more fair than a single rate.

It really hinges on how you define fairness. The proponents of a flat tax are using a simple mathematical definition of "fairness". That's ok, I understand the reasoning, but I do not agree that 20% of $100,000 of income is the same as 20% of $25,000 of income is the same as 20% of $1,500,000 of income. It *is* the same percentage, but how does that make it "fair"?

Think of all the other situations in which "fairness" is an issue. There are none that I can think of that do describe themselves as fair, that are widely held as fair, that also apply a *single* standard of judgment. None. Not sports, where we have pro and amateur leagues, not in our justice system, where we treat differently minors and adults. Not in the marketplace, where capitalism, marketing, intitiative and luck rule the day. Not in our families or our workplaces, where what each gives and each takes is so variable that no two are even the same.

I find a more reasonable concept of fairness in the words of President Kennedy: "Of those to whom much is given, much is required." Much in taxes, much in service, much in devotion. Fair changes over time. I sometimes need more than I have, and I sometimes have more than I need. How do you associate the users of a service with the cost of that service? What about the people who don't use a given service? And what about the cost of the commons? To whom should that bill be sent? To future generations, if history is any example.

One. Size. Fits. All. Doesn't work in the real world, and you know it, I'm sure. One size fits one group. The others fit other groups. You can make it flat, but that doesn't make it fair.