Dylan Hales

April 30, 2009

Over at The American Spectator site, TakiMag’s own Jack Hunter has an interesting essay up on the “Fair Tax” and the problems and prospects that surround this increasingly populist movement.

Like Jack, I am from South Carolina, where the Fair Taxers make up a large portion of the grassroots right.  Though I am generally more critical of the Fair Tax concept than Jack is, I am in absolute agreement with him that these are people we ought to be talking to.  Though many of them have a near religious devotion to their single issue of choice, as a whole the movement represents a willingness to step outside of Beltway thinking on a critical issue – the income tax.  Like Ron Paul kids denouncing the Fed or Front Porchers attacking the agribusiness-industrial complex, those Americans radical enough to call for the repeal of the 16th amendment should be applauded. 

This of course does not mean that one should endorse their scheme.  As a revenue-neutral proposal that would make everyone in the country a federal welfare recipient, the Fair Tax would arguably be worse than the Federal Income Tax.  Still, the spirit behind the movement is hardly a bad one.  More importantly it is one that is ripe picking for an Alternative Right that can speak credibly on the real issues that drive most peoples contempt for federal taxation – massive spending, size of government and of course the amount of money taken out of our pockets by the State.

Once someone is willing to get on board with the notion of eliminating the tax police, convincing them that federal government should be sliced down to it’s Constitutional mandates doesn’t seem that difficult.  At the very least it’s time for us to give it a try.