Chris Daniel - Board of Trustees, Lonestar College/Engineer for Kellogg Brown & Root, If I Were President

The problem with abolishing the income tax in favor of a national sales tax is that it is highly regressive, meaning that the burden of the tax will fall, disproportionally, on middle- and low-income people and would reduce revenue in a time when America can hardly afford it. Everybody has to buy things--food, clothes, cars, toys for children etc--but not everyone makes over $250,000 per year. So instead of the wealthy paying a higher percentage of taxes because they are wealthy, it would mean that everyone would pay more for everything, regardless of how poor or rich they may be.

Abolishing the income tax would reduce the government's revenue (unless sales taxes rose to an absurd level), which would be foolish to do while America is already spending hundreds of billions of dollars on foreign wars and Wall Street bailouts. Raising the sales tax would also decrease spending by everyday people, which, in turn, would hurt the economy and lead to more government revenue shortfalls, thereby creating a cycle of decreased revenue and spending. This idea of cutting taxes or eliminating taxes altogether in a time of war and high government expenditures is foolish and driven by personal greed rather than sound economic planning.