Quoth Boyd W. Smith:

> There is an old saying that says that the perfect is the enemy of
the better. The fair tax while not perfect is clearly much better.

Only if by "clearly much better" you mean it:

- Results in the theft by government of just as much money as the
income tax (the "Fair" Taxers boast that their proposal is "revenue
neutral");

- Results in the same amount of, or perhaps more, redistribution of
wealth than the income tax (the "Fair" Taxers boast that their
proposal is at least as "progressive" as the income tax);

- Puts every American on the dole so that they're recipients of
monthly government welfare checks which the majority will likely fight
tooth and nail to keep coming in perpetuity (the "prebate"); and

- The "Fair" Taxers arguments about eliminating the IRS aside, _will_
require a bureaucracy to administer (both to collect and to send out
the welfare checks).

The "Fair Tax" is at _least_ as bad as the income tax in every way,
and worse in some ways. It's not a tax cut. It's not a tax
elimination. It's just a strengthening of the tax system by linking it
to a welfare program -- just like Social Security, which has been a
"third rail" issue in American politics for half a century precisely
because millions of Americans have a vested interest in keeping the
checks coming.

It may not be politically possible to get the income tax straight-out
eliminated right now, but it is politically possible to get it CUT,
which would be a far superior alternative to the "Fair" Tax.

The Boston Tea Party's program calls for universal, bottom-up tax cuts
as follows:

"The Boston Tea Party calls for legislation adopting an annual,
regularized increase in the personal exemption to the federal income
tax of $1,000 or more, and the additional application of said personal
exemption to all FICA/Social Security taxes paid by employees and
employers."

Members of Congress (mostly Democrats) routinely propose and vote for
increases to the personal exemption, so it's politically doable.

Increases to the personal exemption give EVERYONE who pays taxes a tax
cut, from the janitor at the local factory to Bill Gates.

Increases to the personal exemption remove people from the tax rolls
and withholding treadmill entirely (every time the exemption goes up,
more people's income falls below the taxable amount).

Applying the personal exemption to Social Security payments would
address the extreme regressivity of the Social Security system. The
poorest people pay proportionately the most in Social Security taxes
(since the requirement to pay is capped at a certain income level in,
I believe, the $60K range), and they receive the fewest benefits (due
to shorter lifespan).

Eliminating the income tax is the best option. Failing that, cutting
it is. Replacing it with a tax that doesn't cut taxes, doesn't remedy
redistribution problems, doesn't eliminate (or probably even reduce)
the associated bureaucratic and administrative costs, and puts every
American on government welfare is just a scam if the goal is to reduce
or eliminate taxation.

Tom Knapp