Quote:
Originally Posted by jyl
All this talk is useless without numbers. Run the numbers. We did, in some of the previous threads on the FAIRTAX proposal. IIRC, a national sales tax would have to be around 40% to be revenue neutral. What would a sales tax of 40% do to consumer demand? Let's see, the average effective federal tax rate is about 20% (that's all federal taxes including SSI I think). So, get 25% more in takehome but pay 40% more for what you buy? Hmm, this rewards people who don't spend much. So, consumer spending will go down a lot. And this helps the economy? Hey, at least those of you working for consumer products companies, and the industrial/materials companies who supply equipment and materials for those companies, will have a lot more free time. You can have a reunion in the unemployment line. Reminisce about how great PPOT was, before PP went under due to huge price increases.
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and if anyone thinks the current effort to reform health care has people upset, wait til you try to reform the tax code per the above suggestion. Per the numbers JYL shows, that would absolutely kill the economy and all those in the lower economic strata would be devastated. The sales tax is absolutely the most regressive tax there is.