In a service-driven economy such as ours, a high sales tax is growth-inhibiting, not to mention inherently regressive.

There is a certain base level of things that everyone needs to buy to survive - food, water, electricity, gasoline, clothing, housing, etc. Forcing low-income Americans to pay extremely high taxes on these items would drive them into poverty and beyond.

This economy we have is spending-driven. "Production driven?" Please. We hardly have any production here anymore. Everything's imported from China and Taiwan and India and Mexico. Service industries long ago overtook manufacturing as the economic engine of the United States. Just 15 percent of Americans are employed in manufacturing while 40 percent are in the service sector.

Fact of the matter is, if the working class, who do most of the consuming in this country, don't have any money to spend consuming stuff, our economic engine collapses. Adding a 40 percent sales tax is going to radically discourage consumption - and that is NOT good.