The Obamanation

[TheMercenary]

There is no such thing as an objective source these days when it comes to a controversial issue, esp one as hot as taxation. You obviously support a progressive tax. I support a consumption tax. For every opinion that supports progressive taxation there are opinions that support a consumption tax.

I would close this discussion with the fact that I share the views of The Tax Foundation:

As an institution, the Tax Foundation believes that the current income tax system is fundamentally broken and should be replaced with a code adhering to the principles we have advocated for 70 years: neutrality, simplicity, stability, transparency, and growth promotion.

We do not align ourselves with any particular tax reform camp. Indeed, we have Flat Tax advocates and sales tax advocates on our Board of Directors, and our research was cited in both Steve Forbes' book on the Flat Tax and Neil Boortz's book on the FairTax.

From an economic perspective, there are many similarities between the FairTax and a Flat Tax. For example:

Both the FairTax and the Flat Tax are "consumption taxes." In other words, people are taxed for spending money, not earning it. The Flat Tax would require citizens to file tax returns as they do now, paying tax on all spent money (income minus savings). The FairTax would rely on merchants to collect tax at the point of sale, as they now collect state and local sales taxes.

Both would eliminate the estate and capital gains taxes.

Both plans are single tax rate systems that eliminate double taxation.

Both plans would dramatically reduce compliance costs and the tax system's dead-weight loss to the economy.

Any tax reform plan will have transition issues and these will have to be thought through carefully. That said, the long-term benefits of fundamental tax reform should far outweigh the short-term transition costs.

http://www.taxfoundation.org/publica...how/22562.html

According to this economics professor at Princeton, simply a 5% increase in the form of a consumption tax would raise $500billion a year.

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/20...odays-economy/

More than enough to deal with many of our problems in a few short years.