... will be persuading them to switch to a flat tax in the first place. If the 60% that make up the middle class will see their taxes rise under a flat tax (as appears likely, given your formulation that the middle-class currently is subsidized), the question for you is, how do you persuade them to accept that increase?

Seems to me the most reasonable argument is to portray it as a two-step process: first we switch to flat taxes, then we shrink government down to what we're willing to pay for. But you're asking the middle-class to take it on faith that taxes will go down -- and you're also asking them to believe they will like the result.

This isn't an argument against your theoretical points. Just that, as a flat-tax proponent, you've got a chicken-egg problem to solve if you're going to make it a reality.

Until people are ready to step up and pay for their own way, this is never going to work. We might be waiting for the day for a long time too......

... if it's going to take a long time, and possibly forever, to persuade the country to adopt a flat tax, what do you do in the meantime?

Is there an intermediate step that is more politically achievable?

I could talk about the need to take some of the worst edges off of the current tax rate schedule, but such proposals would be drown out by euphemisms of the rich paying their fair share and those who make the most can afford to give the most. Once those emotional buttons start getting pressed it stops being and intellectual discussion and starts becoming and emotional one. At least thats been my experience up till now.

Well, I must confess I AM wearing my "Soak the rich" T-shirt....

its still fun to discuss it with you. Thank you for your courtesy and good humor. Maybe this approach to discussing political differences will catch on?

Dan, you are correct in saying whatmakes our Gov't inefficient, but what form of Gov't have you ever heard of that was efficient?

-Demosthenes

__________________
"A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

to stop striving for it.

Bottom line is we spend a lot of money on crap we do not need, because not enough people are putting a proportional amount of their income into the broken system. I still say that if more people felt the pain of government waste in proportion to the income they earned, then more people would be motivated to curb government waste when they went to the ballot box and this would result in political leaders more motivated to promote a more efficient government.

Until you share the pain with the whole population (above the poverty line), you have general apathy.

Apathy goes so much deeper than that. there are many reason why American don't vote or don't become more aggresive in keeping tabs on law-makers. But make no mistake, everyone feels the burden of the ineffectiveness of our Gov't. Our society is setup to keep people apathetic and uninterested in change though various comfort creatures ans things we want that just distract us from what we need.

-Demosthenes

__________________
"A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

equally.

I feel it about 50 times more severely than someone if I make 10 times as much money. Soaking me is what keeps the other guys pain at a low enough level to allow him to remain in comfortable apathy. If you spread it proportionately by income, then you would get more people's attention.