Well, A) I don't agree it would be fair and B) that isn't a tax that benefits all Americans, now, is it?
Of course you don't agree because you are either intentionally or unwittingly conflating "fair" and "benefits" everyone as the same thing
You clearly proved the latter, so I'll stick to the former.
I ceded the latter with my original post which is why I countered with what is the only "fair" tax reply
Let's say you go into a restaurant and everyone pays a fee based on the weight of what they're eating. One dude goes in and has the steak and caviar, the other goes in and just has fries. Is the pricing of the meal fair? No, it's not.
Well well look who unwittingly proved my claim...In terms of taxation, if the fries cost $1 then the tax would be .18cents, if the steak and caviar cost $100.00 the tax would be $18.00, now if you are serious about keeping up what is unfair about that? if you are keeping up then "not a thing" should come to mind immediately, people who spend more on "necessities" food, clothing...etc.] would pay no taxes while those buying "luxury" items [boats, planes, bling...etc.] would be paying their fair share.
No, fair is what someone should pay compared to someone else. What benefits someone is a TAX CUT, quite clearly. If I have to pay MORE then it doesn't benefit me. So, you assessment was wrong.
No, you did not read what I wrote. I said everyone pays THE SAME as a percentage of WEIGHT of what they eat. Not that the fries cost this much so you pay a percentage of the tax on that.
If people are paying a flat tax, it does NOT take into account how much of something they are using, it takes into account how much money is being spent. Which means, quite easily, that if a multi-national company is earning X amount it could be using far more of the infrastructure than others.
Take the Iraq War as an example.
The US goes to Iraq and it costs, let's just take a rough estimate rather than be precise as this is just for example, $10 billion tax payers (again, just an easy figure to represent). $10 billion means that for 200 million people, each pays $50 on average.
But our man on the streets he doesn't earn anywhere near the average wage, he earns a lot less, so he's paying like $20 for the war per year. Whereas our guy who owns shares in say, Halliburton or Lockheed Martin, he's paying $300 a year in the flat tax you like.
Seems fair huh?
Except the man on the streets sees oil prices RISE because Iraq's been taken out and oil prices rose. So he's not better off. But our dude with shares in Halliburton, holy ****, he's just made a killing because the share prices have gone through the roof. Then he sees some story on the news about a US soldier who's just lost his life (paying taxes for the too) and he shrugs and goes back to counting the winnings he just gained.
Is it fair? Is it a fair tax that one dude just made a killing out of the US's policy of sending in its army, while another guy loses money because of this?
No, it's not.
Now, the point of what I'm getting at is that the US govt spends money, and it benefits some people more than others.
In Russia in the 1990s businesses had to pay for a mafia. It'd cost them a lot, like 30% of their earnings. US companies don't even pay 30% for EVERYTHING they get (potentially if they're a large **** you corporation). Who benefits the most from security? Is the benefit equally shared among the people? No, the rich get more than the people. So why should they be paying a tax which is equal, when one company is getting MORE for their tax money than someone else?