The “flat tax” still lets Washington too much into the mix (THEY get to decide what our “flat tax” is, after all). A national sales tax on the other hand, where a couple of pennies for the Feds is added to the state sales tax you already pay, has a few major advantages: It’s COMPLETELY “fair” first of all, because it’s based on your personal buying power. Buy a new Mercedes, you’re paying more tax than the guy who buys a beater to get around town. It’s easy, because you just need to do a little finagling with your cash register software to get it done, and — maybe most of all — it provides an incentive for the federal government to actually WORK. When economic times are awesome, big bucks flow into the federal coffers; when times are rough, the feds just have to learn how to get by, or pass legislation that promotes job growth and business strength. The national sales tax is truly “free-market-based”
Sorry for the lengthy double-post!
Either flat or sales tax would be better than what we have. But you say a flat tax still allows DC to set the rate. So does a sales tax BTW. DC will ALWAYS set the rules on taxes. All of this is academic really because I see no movement towards either flat or sales tax.