I'm a passionate supporter of The FairTax, but this piece is not about that specifically. That’s a policy issue. I have NO doubt it is the best policy, but everyone has to come to that conclusion on their own.

I want to talk about IGNORANCE. Not ignorant people, per se, but ignorance about a slow cancer that has been perpetuated as gospel by U.S. Government leaders for nearly a century now. That cancer will lead this country to abdicate its world leadership role to China within the next decade. That cancer will bankrupt our Social Security and Medicare system within 2 decades.

That cancer is completely curable. But because of IGNORANCE the majority of this country doesn’t even see it for the cancer it is.

That cancer is our Income Tax system. ANY Income Tax system (current, Flat, etc).

The Income Tax is completely against anything our Founding Fathers dreamed of. In fact, they expressly forbid such direct taxation in The Constitution. It took some very sleazy political gamesmanship in 1913 to slide in an amendment to The Constitution to allow this farce by the Supreme Court. But after that, the taxing and spending floodgates have opened and we've never even tried to close them.

What are some of the many evils (sure, I’ll use that word) of our Income Tax Code?

• It forces tax-paying Americans to spend an additional 20% surtax (or about $500 BILLION per year) for NO other reason than to comply with Federal income tax regulations.

• That’s about 4 times more money than the Bush Tax Cuts that Republicans take so much credit for.
• When a ship is sinking fast, what genius can’t see that you plug massive leaks before you even start to worry about lightening the load.

• It makes all illegal activities TAX-EXEMPT.

• Criminals are essentially tax-exempt because they don’t REPORT income, which is the only income you have to pay taxes on under an income tax system.
• Tax-paying Americans currently subsidize such people to the tune of about $700 BILLION per year. Did any of you volunteer to give financial aid to drug-dealers?
• Let’s don’t even get into the moral concerns with that situation.

• It perpetuates a CERTAINTY of bankruptcy regarding our 2 biggest government programs: Social Security and Medicare.

• It is pure DEMOGRAPHICS. Not a policy issue, but a mathematics issue. But politicians (and most Americans) would rather play politics than apply simple math, I guess.

• It hides the amount of Federal taxes Americans pay (or have confiscated), effectively making taxation so COMPLICATED and MULTI-FACETED that no American can really know how much they pay.

• Income Tax, Social Security Tax, Medicare Tax, Corporate Tax, Payroll Tax, Capital Gains Tax, Estate Tax, etc. Get the idea. We don’t have a good idea of how much we really pay given all those taxes.
• Makes it pretty hard to do anything about excessive taxation when the taxation is in effect like hundreds of fluid little water filled balloons. If not invisible, it’s certainly hard to get a hold of.

• It makes American businesses inflate their prices 15% - 25% due to taxes. That price inflation:

• Further hides Federal taxation from Americans. After all, businesses are inflating those prices to in effect collect taxes from us to send to the Feds. The Feds, though, get to collect more taxes and have us blame big mean businesses when they’re just forcing those businesses to do their tax collection.
• Makes American goods and services artificially less competitive to foreign rivals. Then we wonder why manufacturing jobs are all going overseas and why our trade deficit is so horrific.

• It makes it very difficult for POOR Americans to actually climb out of poverty. Think about it.

• Mathematically the most REGRESSIVE tax by far is FICA. A minimum-wage waitress pays the same FICA tax-rate as her $90,000 boss.

· Then she has to spend all of what’s left to feed her family, all of it on goods and services that have that artificial business price inflation due to taxes. Her boss, on the other hand, wisely saves money and only pays half his pay on those price-inflated goods and services. So, in effect, the waitress spends almost TWICE the tax-rate of her boss when measured in those hidden taxes brought about by business taxation.

With very few exceptions, every Washington politician and political candidate will chant the mantra of Tax Reform.

‘Elect me and I’ll REFORM the tax system. Your taxes will be lowered because I will ____________________’. Fill in the blank from below:

· Cut taxes on the middle-class.

· Raise taxes on the wealthy.

· Make the Income Tax FLAT.

None of those do ANYTHING what-so-ever about the problem. The whole idea of an Income Tax is systemically flawed and inconsistent with Capitalism and human nature.

There is no reform that will work. It was explicitly banned in The Constitution for a reason. IT IS A BAD IDEA.

The idea of income-based taxation has to be REPLACED.

There is only 1 REPLACEMENT tax plan that meets the following criteria:

· It effectively solves each of the Income Tax EVILS earlier mentioned, plus dozens of others. That includes SAVING Social Security and Medicare.

· It provides 100% revenue REPLACEMENT (that’s what the word replacement means, after all) of current Federal taxes.

· It cuts taxes an average of 20% for EVERY tax-paying legal American.

· It WILL bring about business growth, lower tax rates, higher savings rates, more home ownership, more jobs, etc.

· It has already been introduced in Congress.

That plan is The FairTax.

But again, The FairTax can only be appreciated if one understands the necessity of ridding this country of an Income Tax.