jb2000

I admit I don't know off hand which form Forbes supports lately. There are two kinds of 'flat' taxes that people talk about. One is a basic same rate regardless of income, and the other refers to a progressive or regressive system that is flat in the sense that there are no deductions or special circumstances, and thus all who have X income pay the same tax, all who make Y income pay the same, etc.

The first may sound simple, but is so horribly regressive that it can not be supported in reality. The idea that 20% of a $14,000/yr income is a similar burden to 20% of a $140,000/yr income is untenable. Thus I support the second form, in which all are equally covered by a progressive scale.

User fees are commonly popular as a way to supposedly contain the cost of certain programs to those who get benefits out of them, but in reality with few exceptions that kind of thinking doesn't apply to social programs. User fees are wonderful in commercial applications, but these should be handled by private companies, not the government. The government should be limited to those investments for which costs and benefits are not limited, but instead spread throughout enough breadth of the society to make their benefits and costs common to us all. Add to that the fact that collection of user fees is innefficient and results in regressive taxation, and there is no way I can support them as a major method of revenue gathering. Not that I oppose some nominal fees for specific services. $5 for a day pass to a National Park; I'm okay with; but trying to fund the National Park Service solely off user fees? No way. They are national treasures which benefit the nation as a whole, regardless of our personal patronage of the parks themselves.

Things like roads (I'm a big enemy of toll-roads) and education don't just benifit their direct users, but they benefit the nation as a whole, and the most efficient way as a society to pay for them is not through micro-collection of user fees, but instead by inclusion of their costs in the common treasury.

Finally, I guess I have to oppose your property tax idea as well. Property taxes indeed do represent an inordinate burden on those with limited cash flow. It means that people can not be comfortable in trying to put together what property they can afford to, but instead have to live forever in fear of it being taken from them if they ever lose the ability to pay the recurring taxes on the property. An estate tax to limit generation-to-generation ammassing of massive levels of wealth is appropriate, but if you buy a piece of property, then at least so long as you are alive, you should be able to feel confortable in knowing that it is truly yours and noone can take it from you.