National Sales Tax: Fantastic!

If only Bush had made this a campaign issue:

Rep. Gil Gutknecht invites you to ponder a bold future, a future with no IRS.

'Think of a world where there is no income tax, where you get to keep everything you earn and you pay the tax man when you buy stuff,' said the Minnesota Republican.

That's the basic premise behind a proposed national sales tax, just one of many ideas for overhauling the nation's tax code. Under a bill cosponsored by Gutknecht, all federal taxes on income would disappear, but consumers would pay a 23 percent federal sales tax on their consumption -- on top of existing state taxes.

Washington is abuzz with ideas after President Bush won a second term and immediately pledged to make 'tax reform' a top domestic priority.

Yep, a 23% price hike on everything you buy would certainly go over well. While the idea of getting rid of the IRS may be a nice way to frame this for the GOP, I know people who complain when they go from one county to another where the sales tax is a percent or two higher. Sure, people hate paying taxes, but increasing the frequency with which you have to see your money whisked away to Washington from once a pay period to every single purchase you make is not going to go over well. Plus, people who don't make a lot of money or are students need to sit down with a calculator and realize how little they pay in taxes anyway compared to how much they'll end up paying with 23% added to every purchase.

By the way, I noticed that the print version of the Strib had the headline for this story as "Everyday will be April 15," which I thought to be surprisingly critical for a headline, but the online version has changed to the much more upbeat "Idea of replacing income tax gains momentum." I wonder if the "Tax Payers League" complained.