The so-called ‘Fair Tax’ is just a clever fraud. It promises benefits that it can’t deliver.

1) It claims a National Sales Tax will result in more money for employees (no income tax), and, the prices of goods will drop. But the price of goods can only drop if their costs also drop. This is simple economics. For prices to drop 23% the costs will have to drop by a lot more (mark-up). This cannot happen.

2) The Federal Constitution was adopted to give the general government its own taxing powers so it would not depend on payments from the states. The ‘Fair Tax’ should be ruled unconstitutional because of this. Note how they tried to sneak this past their readers!

3) The ‘Fair Tax’ was rejected by President Bush’s economic advisors in 2005 and will never be passed. The candidates who favored this tax were rejected in the presidential primaries.

4) The US never had a National Sales Tax. One proposal for this was rejected in the 1930s. The Supreme Court could strike it down based on the Federalist Papers (articles 15 to 22).

5) The ‘Fair Tax’ book distorts the historical record in arguing for its flawed proposal.

6) The ‘Fair Tax’ is a swindle to raise taxes on 80% of the people to benefit the super-rich. This would create another Great Depression where most people are impoverished from high taxes. Lower wages and fewer jobs created today’s “Great Recession”.

7) You can search the Internet for “Bruce Barlett Fair Tax” to find more criticisms. But Bartlett favors another high and regressive national sales tax (the Value Added Tax). The VAT does not place taxes on top of taxes like the ‘Fair Tax’ does. You may visit the FairTaxFraud.com site for more information.

—Ronald A. Sobieraj