Arnold Kling has a piece at TCSDaily on the flaws inherent in the Fair Tax, a proposal to replace all Federal taxes with a 30% national sales tax. Personally, I'm partial to the flat tax, but I find Kling's proposal at the end of the piece intriguing, essentially combining a potion of the Fair Tax with a proposal similar to the one being advanced by former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson.
I'm not sure what I think of the plan as a whole, but Kling closes with the strongest argument in favor of his plan: "if the rules about keeping the income tax invariant and paying for new spending with sales tax increases could be made to stick, the bias toward higher government spending might be greatly reduced." I don't know how you could make the income tax invariant in any meaningful way (which is why I am inclined to be opposed to this measure), but if it could be made to work with a measure short of a constitutional amendment, a proposal such as Kling's could very well win my support.
No comments:
Post a Comment