Doesn't matter, biLL, unless you skew the sales tax toward luxary items only, then the working class will still be carryin' a regressive share of the burden... And if you do only tax luxary items then what you will be doing is creting a huge black market of luxary items and loopholes like whether or not to tax on used items verses only new items, what constitutes luxary (as opposed to necessities)... I think what you are advocating will make the current system look fair becuase there will be so much cheating that the IRS will have to be expanded many fold to enforce it...

The main problem with income taxes is that there are way too many loopholes and various ways around paying them if you are wealthy enough to hire high priced tax accountants... But it's not just loopholes for the rich but other loopholes... Like why is interest on one's morgage (or equityy line) deductable... If I buy a car and finance it at a bank, I recieve no deduction... However, if I buy the same car and pay for it from an equity line with my house being held as security, then I can write off the interest??? What is the difference??? This makes no sense at all... This is dumb tax code... And you can bet that the rich keep their wquity lines open real large so that they can write off interest... Dumb laws...

I mean, let's face it, the tax system isn't fair.... It favors the rich or they would be paying their fair share of the amount of wealth that they have corraled... This shifts the burden toward the working class...

Just a last thing... Before 1982 when the ***real*** incomes of the working class began their decline we didn't have this obscene wealth... We didn't have McMansions... We didn't see so many people who seemed to have so much... People were just people... I grew up in NoVa.... We had Congressmen, Generals, Admirals, Doctors, lawyers and Indian Chiefs all living purdy much the same as everyone else... There wasn't this monterous income gap... Even baseball players lived in their 3 bedroom houses like everyone else in NoVa... And the best thing about it was that for most working class families the dads went to work and the moms stayed home and raised kids...

But now we have a situation where both parents have to work in the working class in order to barely keep up... Not so the rich... They have never had it so good... That is the reality and they certainly don't deserve it... Bill Gates??? Nice guy??? Ask the competetors who he buried under the wieght of law suits... The system was there for Bill Gates... He is no hero... In other times he might have done jail time... But now he has promted himself into some kind of hero??? And his shills bow down and worship him as if he indeed was some kind of hero... He's no hero... He is a thug... Hero's don't us laws to bury competition... They compete in the market... Thugs use laws to bury people... That's the real story...

B~