You have mentioned Fox News a lot in your comments (and there seems to be this seething hatred for it from many others on the left). You should know that I very seldom watch it, certainly not regularly.

And back to the Fair Tax. Have you read the book yet? The anti-Fair Tax sites might have some good research and talking points, but you’re missing a big issue every time you talk about it being regressive, so I am wondering if you have a complete understanding of how its designed.

Do you seriously regard defense as an other-than-basic service?

My problem with the tax system is more than its being confiscatory. Frankly, the federal and state governments have no right knowing what you or I or anyone makes–absolutely none. And think if it this way: many of President Obama’s nominees would have already been confirmed if we had the Fair Tax rather than the graduated income tax.

You said:

There are winners and losers, bridges and schools need to be built, teachers soldiers, and cops need to be paid, and the income tax is probably the fairest vehicle for gathering the resources necessary to do the collective things that societies need to do in order to make life livable.

I don’t think “fairest” is the world you really meant here. Maybe “easiest.” Surely you can’t seriously think we on the right oppose bridges and schools being built and teachers, soldiers, and cops being paid. We get the whole notion of taxation; it’s just that some of us believe it has limits. And frankly, some of us are ready to see some limits observed. It should never come down to how much of our money the government allows us to keep; it’s how much of our money we’re allowing the government to use for the collective good. I’m not expecting to pay fewer taxes with the Fair Tax. I long to take away the government’s power to pick the winners and losers you mention above. I long to see the cost (especially the time cost) of compliance go away. I long for the huge power shift away from Washington to the people. I long for the day when K Street is just another street. I long for those not paying their fair share to be privileged to join us in paying for this republic. I am a true believer that the Fair Tax facilitates all that. Heck, you mention the inequity in richer persons’ tax rates. The Fair Tax is your great equalizer.

I am sympathetic to the problem that many libertarians have regarding the confiscatory nature of the budgeting process. At the end of the day, however, I am left with the inevitable “What are the alternatives?” questions. I just don’t find the libertarian answers to that question persuasive. We should be watchful of how the state spends our money, and critical when we think they are behaving wastefully, but we can’t pretend that politics is a consensual game. There are winners and losers, bridges and schools need to be built, teachers soldiers, and cops need to be paid, and the income tax is probably the fairest vehicle for gathering the resources necessary to do the collective things that societies need to do in order to make life livable.

By corporate sponsorship, I was simply pointing up the efforts of FoxNews to organize and build support for the event, as witnessed here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/15/AR2009041503177_pf.html.

To paraphrase Forest Gump, “Sorry I broke up your Teabag Party.”

Not sure what you mean about the corporate sponsorship?

It’s bad enough I have to tell the government what I make…I won’t be divulging it here. That said, my opposition to the tax system in America is not rooted in my own personal self interest; strangely enough, it’s rooted in liberty and fundamental fairness.

I am of two minds on some things. The idealist in me thinks we shouldn’t need term limits to get losers out of office. The realist in me knows that incumbents are so entrenched that term limits are the only way of getting fresh blood (of both parties, by the way) into the political process. By the same token, I’d like to think that the electorate would rebel (ala the tea parties maybe) in such a way that TABOR were unneeded. The realist thinks we need any restraint we can get. But then again, the Fair Tax would take care of it without either…

As a practical matter, I think we as Americans need to recognize that we are not taxed too heavily, especially the 300 K wealthiest. Ironically, Tyson, you are probably paying somewhat higher taxes — assuming that you and your lovely and talented wife make something in the $250,000 K range — than the people at AIG or Goldman Sachs, who get to claim their income as capital gains, and hence only have to pay a 25% tax.

As someone who studies this stuff for a living,I wish the that states would do more to assert themselves in crucial areas — education and health care, especially — but conservative’s TABOR campaigns have made that an uphill climb. I wonder if you feel the same shadenfruede on that sort of thing that I feel with parts of the Great Society.

Ah, politics! If you don’t keep a sense of humor about it you lose your humanity.

Teabags all around!