Excellent article over at Doug Mataconis’ blog . Money quote is here:
I do not think a Swiss-cheese tax code that rigs the market to send investment dollars here rather than there
thousands of times over is a tax code worth defending.
If Americans for Tax Reform believes otherwise — and I don’t know that they do — then it amounts to a conservative embrace of state-directed social and economic engineering.
I am swiftly discovering myself to become more and more of a “fair taxer” or flat taxer as time develops… I haven’t quite sorted out this regressive tax problem in the back of my mind, but the idea that “every American should be invested in their government” (or something to that effect) struck a nerve.
Now I just have to mentally sort out how you don’t regressively impact low income families with a flat tax… if that’s even desirable. When taxes are too high, the solution should be to lower them, not to steal from others to balance the books in a progressive schematic. Low income wage earners feeling the burn of a 25% tax rate ought to scream bloody murder… and demand lower taxes, which in turn puts more money into the economy, creates better jobs, and pulls people out of poverty.
I dunno. Any defenders of a progressive tax scheme here to correct my malinformed opinions? Or have I just turned the corner on the flat tax?