With any government of force, nothing is "fair".
Let's have a dissolution item on every ballot for every level of "GOVERNment"

FairTax, FlatTax, XYZTax -- all wrong.
Now, what would you as an individual be willing to contribute for defense of your individual rights? Would you pay for a volunteer fire department that saved your house? Would you pay for a volunteer fire department that might save your house someday? How about defense of your life or property? Those are the questions that need to be answered.

It's better, but not perfect. It lets you know, up-front, what portion of the production of "new stuff" has to go to pay for the government. Its implementation might improve the economy by removing tax-loss and compliance computations from people's thinking about consumption or investment.

And that thirty-percent figure might make people think about how much government they really want.

But real reform will need a Great Awakening to the cost of government and the (im)propriety of most of its current functions.

Rand said the proper functions of government all have to do with managing force. That means police, military, and judiciary.

The Constitution lists a set of "enumerated powers," one of which I would strike at once: "the power to establish post offices and post roads." That reflects obsolete thinking about communications and transportation, and the government's role in each.

George Washington had a very small cabinet: Secretaries of State, Treasury, and War, and an Attorney General. (The Navy Department had to wait until the United States built enough fighting ships.) To get back to that system, we would need only Secretaries (and Departments) of State, Treasury, and Defense, plus the Attorney General and the Department of Justice. That's all the executive would need.

Only then could we discuss how to fund that, and how to make it work as Rand proposed: that people pay voluntarily as they now pay for insurance, whether to use a lottery, etc.

All tax schemes that are adopted are designed to allow maximum manipulation by the tax collectors. Unless someone comes up wit h a more unfair and corruptible tax scheme there will be no change to the current income tax.

The actual federal sales tax rate they are proposing is 30% not 23%. The 23% is actually 23% of the final price after the tax is included. Rather misleading in my view.

In addition, they seem to be assuming that consumption patterns will not change if the “fair tax” is implemented. In fact, they will change big time. How many people will pay a 30% surcharge for a new house when an equivalent used one can be bought tax free. Same with cars, jewelry, and other big-ticket items. The “fair tax” would likely cause massive economic disruption just implementing its distinction between “new” and “used”.