Mike Huckabee's Fatuous "FairTax"

Mike Huckabee's tax plan lies somewhere between The Ice Cream Glove and The Stadium Pal in terms of unworkable absurdity. As columnist Jonathan Chait of The New Republic put it:

It is difficult for me to find the words to explain just how crazy this idea is. The national sales tax is crazier, by an order of magnitude, than any other crazy idea I've seen at the national level. It's so crazy that even really crazy right-wingers think it's pretty crazy.

Lest I leave any doubt, the so-called "FairTax" plan has been thoroughly debunked in the following article by conservative economist Bruce Bartlett. Main conclusions: it's not enactable, not enforceable, and clearly unfair.

http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/files/bartlett_fair_tax.pdf

As one of the points of greatest deception, the proposed sales tax rate is 30%, not 23%. That's the tax-inclusive rate they're quoting. Sales taxes are usually presented tax-exclusive. Example: While you'd expect the price of a $1.00 good to rise to $1.23 after the Fairtax, it'd actually be $1.30 (23% of $1.30 is $1.00, HAHA gotcha!).

Anyway, I can't believe this garbage is given any legitimacy at all. Final parting shot from the Jonathan Chait column:

So how did Huckabee come to support the fair tax? He was asked about the idea by fair-tax supporters on the campaign trail, bought the book touting it, and was persuaded. Lord help us if he gets his hands on a copy of Das Kapital.