[A. Pole]

Someone please tell me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that income tax rates in this country play a major role in the outsourcing of services and production.

You are right. Tariffs should replace income/wage/payroll tax. The original system should be restored.

[phil_will1]

"You are right. Tariffs should replace income/wage/payroll tax."

As a matter of fact, a National Retail Sales Tax would operate like a tariff (at least relative to the current system)because it would raise the after-tax prices of imports. However, because US produced goods would go down in price because of the removal of the current system, they would be approximately the same after-tax.

This would accomplish what tariffs would, but would be much more defensible, since we could point out that we would be taxing imports exactly the same as domestic production.