Dave Hornstein writes this opinion at examiner.com:
There is a proposal to replace the federal income tax with a national sales tax, dubbed by its proponents the "fair tax," a label that is not only dishonest but downright Orwellian. The British writer George Orwell, a man of uncompromising intellectual honesty, saw clearly that in politics something can be given a name that is the exact opposite of the reality
To call a national sales tax a "fair tax" is certainly Orwellian when sales taxes are highly regressive. The less income a person makes, the higher percentage of it they have to spend. With spending being taxed, the lower one's income, the higher the percentage of it that goes to taxes.
The fairest basis for taxation is ability to pay, which is based on income. As a person spends a lower percentage of their income as they make more money, a graduated income tax is the fairest of all, for people at higher income levels have more money available to pay taxes.
What do you think of Hornstein's argument? Use economic language and analysis in your explanation. Is "ability-to-pay" the only criteria for determining the fairness of a tax? How could a national sales tax be made more fair? How might a national sales tax be considered "efficient"?
