[Fair&Balanced]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

This is a common attempt by progressives to cite classwarfare and demonize a radical change where everyone pays some Federal Income tax. As long as 47% of the citizens do not pay tax the system will fail. Further spending must be cut. You can't run up the credit cards and then cry off because you don't have the money to pay for your boondoggle expenses.

The top taxpayers are currently paying the lowest rate they have in more than 30 years. Restoring the rate to the pre-2001 rate is more equitable to me than taxing folks living at the poverty level.

I have not read that. Maybe you could point to one of your opinion pieces that makes this claim. And then I could point to an opinion piece that disagrees with it. And round and round we could go.

The fair tax proposal floating around today is similar to a proposal from 5-6 years ago.

Relying on data from Bush's Advisory Panel on Tax Reform, here is what FactCheck.org found:

We wrote that the bipartisan Advisory Panel on Tax Reform had “calculated that a sales tax would have to be set at 34 percent of retail sales prices to bring in the same revenue as the taxes it would replace, meaning that an automobile with a retail price of $10,000 would cost $13,400 including the new sales tax.” A number of readers pointed out that H.R. 25, the specific bill mentioned by Gov. Huckabee, calls for a 23 percent retail sales tax and not the 34 percent used by the Advisory Panel on Tax Reform. That 23 percent number, however, is misleading and based on some extremely optimistic assumptions. We found that while there are several good economic arguments for the FairTax, unless you earn more than $200,000 per year, fairness is not one of them...

...With the prebate program in effect, those earning less than $15,000 per year would see their share of the federal tax burden drop from -0.7 percent to -6.3 percent. Of course, if the poorest Americans are paying less under the FairTax plan, then someone else pays more. As it turns out, according to the Treasury Department, “someone else” is everybody earning between $15,000 and $200,000 per year. The chart below compares the share of the federal tax burden for different income groups under the current system and under the FairTax. Those in the highest and the lowest brackets will see their share decrease, while everyone else will see their share of taxes increase.

(see the charts from Classicman's post that come right out of Bush's Treasury Dept.)...

...it is revenue-neutral only through an accounting trick. It will collect more money from those earning between $15,000 and $200,000 per year and less from those earning more than $200,000 per year. It is possible that the FairTax would make most people better off, but much of that gain would be a direct result of making the tax code less fair.

http://www.factcheck.org/taxes/unspi...e_fairtax.html

As to:

This is contrary to the things I have read. In fact the only people who I have heard propose a flat tax are the Demoncrats.

The current fair tax proposal in the House has 60 co-sponsors, all Republican.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h112-25

I will restate what I said one more time.

The fair or flat tax proposals I have seen have several things in common:
1) they lower the tax obligation of the top bracket at the expense of the middle class
2) they take away incentives to middle class taxpayers, re: home ownership, retirement planning, etc.
3) revenue projections rely on unsubstantiated ideological (overly optimistic) economic assumptions that they cant support.

added:

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Oh contare, if someone disagrees with something I stated and make counter claims against it, I am perfectly within my right to ask them to prove me wrong. Who made you some overlord of how one may debate? UT? Did he give you some special disposition? I am not impressed.

As an aside, I think it is unfortunate that you are apparently unwilling to take to heart the comments of Jill, BigV and others (not just me) in recent posts on your "debating" style.

IMO, discussions here would be much more informative if you were to do so but I guess we will play the cards we're dealt and do the best we can to have honest discussions despite the obstacles of having requirements demanded of others that you refuse to accept for yourself.