by Rod D. Martin
April 4, 2006

Dear ____________,

I just listened to a “Fair” Tax proponent get interviewed on CNBC. And suddenly, he brought the whole issue into incredibly clear focus.

The scheme “untaxes” the poor by sending them a government rebate check each month for the amount of the government’s estimate of how much they spent in sales tax.

In other words, we teach every poor person in America to count on, to depend on, to expect and feel entitled to, a monthly government check.

This, added to the fact that sales taxes always go up, never go down, and always fuel bigger and bigger government wherever they’re enacted, is the best argument against the sales tax I’ve heard yet. The “Fair” Tax is the most radical scheme ever proposed for the endless expansion of government and the total dependency of the poor, even the poor not officially on welfare! It will teach them all to be “dependent” and “entitled”. And just watch the political fights over changes to the estimates and the resulting sizes of the rebates (and ever-escalating arguments to over-rebate certain classes, since we’ll now have a mechanism already in place to pay absolutely everyone).

In short: the “Fair” Tax creates the ultimate liberal society, reversing all the gains we’ve made in self-reliance and belief in conservative values. The Flat Tax provokes a tax revolt and creates a more conservative society. You choose.

Rod

P.S. Surely you realize: the whole line about “abolishing the IRS” is a lie. Obviously someone in the federal government is going to have to administer the tax and its collection. But more to the point, an enormous new welfare agency is going to be created to administer the monthly rebate checks!!

So if the “Fair” Tax abolishes the IRS (which it doesn’t), it replaces it with a whole new Department of Health and Human Services.

Impressive.