douglas
Active member
- Joined
- Jun 22, 2013
- Messages
- 458
- Reaction score
- 290
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Libertarian - Left
A tax on spending is the absolute WORST way for a consumer economy to collect revenue. We want to encourage spending, not discourage it by taxing. The money we want is income NOT spent. People that are saving 80% of their income are the real drag on our economy.
I don't agree on the first half, since you'll have more money on hand. The fairtax proposal includes a basic income check as a pre-tax stimumlus, equal to the average amount that is claimed off of peoples taxes. In the end, this should increase spending, not decrease it.
I agree with the second point, money hoarding is a big problem. Fairtax is essentially a regressive tax, so it could even make it worse. I've said it before; there's no such thing as a perfect solution, just a better solution. A fairtax plan should reduce some of the government spending, so it all comes down to whether that will solve more problems than it creates. I think it will, but it's definitely something we need to think about.