Growls

In perhaps the most succinct case for a single-rate federal tax system, Scott Hodge, president of the Tax Foundation, writes, "The most serious obstacle to (tax) reform is the fact that America has become divided between a growing class of people who pay no income taxes and a shrinking class of people who are bearing the lion's share of the burden" since "the top 20% of taxpayers -- those earning more than roughly $71,000 in 2004 -- now pay over 80% of all the income taxes." As we've previously growled, and Hodge points out, one-third of Americans who filed returned in 2004 had no tax liability.

Hodge concludes that "the most neutral system is a single-rate tax levied on consumption or on incomes above some politically accepted level." He closes with: "If lawmakers can finally muster the courage to move to such a system, "April 15th," as former Louisiana Congressman Billy Tauzin once said, "will be just another beautiful spring day." The American people, however, must help provide their congressmen with the requisite backbone.