Cause stuff needs to be cut, and cutting stuff angers unions, special interest groups, etc. Do you realize that the system is set up to elect those who spend more and kick out those who cut spending?
Lets start with cutting defense spending, and corporate tax breaks(corporate welfare), and eliminate loop holes in our tax code.
Then, let move back to the pre-Clinton tax rates and let the middle class keep more of thier income since they are more likely to push that money back into the economy.
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Oh, it *sounds* fair. But only until you take a look with real numbers involved.
The poor spend the vast majority of their income on basic necessities.
The middle class spend a significant portion of their income on necessities and small luxuries.
The genuinely wealthy spend a small portion of their income *period*.
Limiting taxes to sales tax (or similarly structured taxes like the OP mentioned) means increasing those tax rates. Increasing those tax rates hit those with the least means to pay hardest.
If you're normally left with 10% of your income left over, and sales taxes rise by 10%, your savings ability has just dropped to 1%.
If you're normally left with 30% of your income left over, and sales taxes rise by 10%, your savings ability has just dropped to 23%.
If you're normally left with 80% of your income left over, and sales taxes rise by 10%, your savings ability has just dropped to 78%.
Couple those percentages with appropriate income figures, and you see the real problem.
The poor family, making $25K/year is able to save $250/year instead of $2500/year.
The middle class family, making $100K/year is able to save 23K/year instead of 30K/year.
The wealthy family, making $1M/year is able to save 780K/year instead of 800K/year.
Getting tires replace for the family car will cost 3-5 years worth of savings for the poor family, about a week's or two worth for the middle class family, and less than a day for the wealthy family, even if the tires for their car cost at about 5x as much.
When you get into the 1B/year folks, things get even more extreme.
Sales taxes are regressive. They most hurt the people least able to take the pain.
Couple that with the fact that the poor folks are stuck buying used or cheap gear, they end up having to replace their gear more often, leading to further cost increases. There's an expression that says:
I'll explain it if I need to, but you ought to be able to figure it out.
Well said.