During those times, we never had anywhere near the number of non-federal-taxpaying voters we have today. Currently 49% do not pay federal income taxes. That number increases every year.
Do you understand what will happen in a few years when the 49% become the 51%??? When those who pay taxes become a permanent minority at the ballot box?
I'm tired of explaining this to people. So why don't you tell me what the future holds when a *majority* of voters no longer pay any federal income taxes? Who do you think will win every election? What do you think government spending and tax policies will be? Will they be the kind of policies that will ever lead to "enormous growth"?
I can fix that easily — just eliminate a few deductions, and set a base tax rate of 5% that is not subject to deductions, so that everybody pays a little bit.
If you can’t get that trivial fix through congress, there’s no way you’ll get a 9% sales tax through.
i’m not even sure I support a national sales tax. We already have state sales taxes, and that’s good for states.
I’d rather see us re-institute a “state” tax, where each state was required to provide a fixed amount of money based on the population of the state. The state could raise the funds anyway they want, so the people could decide if they wanted to use a sales tax, an income tax, or some other tax.
These are all incremental changes that wouldn’t disrupt the economy, through fear and doubt into business, or implement an entirely new federal tax authority complete with it’s own beaurocracy, special interest deductions/credits, and ability to be manipulated by corporate interests with large lobbying arms.
Enterprise zones are just the most obvious example of how a sales tax regime can be manipulated to give government more power, and to bring lobbying dollars into the coffers of politicians in exchange for identification of where and what enterprize zones exist.
BTW, this isn’t really a “Cain” thing for me. Note that Rick Perry has expressed support for the FairTax, which is the end game for Cain as well. I’m not a fan of FairTax, because of the same reasons I’ve expressed before here, but it is less likely to be manipulated, and at least it is the END game, not some compromise intermediate less-desirable plan.