On the one hand, the Huckster claims that a 23% sales tax would be a wonderful thing, as it would abolish any need for the I.R.S. Sounds great, as everybody hates, fears, and loathes the Internal Revenue Service. "Service"? Yeah right. Just like you'd get "serviced" if you bend over to pick up an errant bar of soap in the showers at Shawshank Prison.
Yet bad as the I.R.S. may be, the Huckster's "plan" is far worse. Much as Democrats and Liberal Republicans decry the current tax system, the fact remains that around 10% of America's richest folks pay close to 90% of the taxes. Slap an across-the-board tax that takes a quarter of your income with each purchase you make, and you don't have to be Ronald McDonald to understand that such a program is going to affect middle-income and poor citizens very negatively.
Actually, prior to 1986, when Republican Bob Packwood of Oregon undertook a massive re-writing of federal tax code, the tax situation in the USA was remarkably fair. It was sort of like a game: they have your money; how much can you legally get back? If you played it right, you could write down the taxes you pay on fuel. Interest on credit cards was deductible. You didn't have to pay taxes on interest earned in a savings account.
All of that changed under the "guidance" of Packwood: even as he bragged in ads about how he was "putting more money into the pocket of your jeans", he was actually "guiding" one of the greatest ripoffs the American taxpayer has ever seen. Soon enough, "experts" began worrying that Americans weren't saving money. Savings accounts became liabilities under the Packwood Plan, so why should this development have come as a surprise? If you put $100 into a bank and earned 5% interest - you suddenly got taxed on that interest. And if you never added to that $100, you still got taxed - year after year, on any interest earned. Somehow, it was a big surprise that Americans dramatically cut deposits into savings accounts.
Bad as the Packwood Plan was, in terms of ultimate effects - the Huckster's is even worse.
