A National Sales Tax?
A new piece today in the Washington Post suggests that Obama administration officials and members of Congress alike are considering the possibility of a VAT, or value-added tax, which would impose a levy on all goods and services in order to cover the nation's gi-fucking-normous budget deficit. Along with raising taxes on the highest earners, the idea of a VAT seems to be gaining traction as something that has worked for 130 other countries worldwide.
Both Ezekiel Emanuel (Rahm's brother), who's serving as a health care advisor to the President, and former Fed chair Paul Volcker who's serving as a tax advisor, have allegedly expressed interest in such a tax -- which would add a surcharge onto everything from a pack of gum to a haircut. Some see the tax as one of the only ways out of the hole we're in while also funding Obama's trillion-dollar expansion of health care coverage. Crazy, you say? This tax-despising nation would never stand for it and it unfairly impacts the poor?
To quote the post:
The surge of interest in a VAT is testament to the extraordinary depth of the nation's money troubles. While some conservatives have long argued that a consumption tax would provide a simpler and more efficient alternative to the byzantine U.S. income tax code, this time it's all about the money.
The trouble is, those 130 countries that have a VAT probably don't also have state-by-state sales taxes which in some cases (like California) are 9%. A couple percentage points in states that have no sales tax, or where the tax is 4% wouldn't hurt that much, but what about here?