Lol, its alright, I forgive you.  Any idea can sound good under the right circumstances, and you have to look pretty far ahead to see the complications of this one.

I guess according to his calculations he'd make more money with his proposed rules. This takes us back to square zero.

My point is "appeal to authority" doesn't work. We need believable arguments.

I am not really sure where you are getting that I said prices would go up, the taxes would go up, but I didn't say prices would go up.  But the end price will go up however you look at it.  Otherwise producers would be absorbing some of the cost of the tax, which they would very likely not do if the tax was on everything as there is no incentive to absorb that cost.

Why would incomes drop if people are essentially being taxed the same amount in the long run (assuming the government collects the same amount of revenue from the sales tax)?  I see where you might think that would happen, but wouldn't that be an even worse thing for the economy as many employees (generally spend higher perecentages of their income than their employers) would be spending less.  Your point about wages going down doesn't really seem relevant.

As to the last point of it crippling the economy, yes, it is an obvious conclusion.  Putting an artificial price floor in place (which a 30-40% tax would do) disrupts natural supply and demand.  The higher the price floor, the more extreme the effect becomes.

This may work in one or two sectors of the market, but putting an artificial price floor on the entire market would really hurt everybody.  I could buy my goods online from Canada and avoid the tax.  Foreign countries could buy their goods from other places than America and avoid the tax.  U.S. manufacturers would shut down because U.S. companies would buy all their component parts abroad because that is cheaper.  Anytime I wanted to buy a car or get some kind of expensive service I could drive across the border to Mexico and do it a lot cheaper.  This may not have been as big of a deal before the internet was around, but if people can get around a ludicrously high tax without too much effort on their part, they will do it.

Front-end taxes influence people's monetary decisions much more than back-end taxes do.  While this is not true for everyone, the average person sees taxes they pay immediately before they see taxes they will pay a few years from now, like yearly property tax or income taxes.  When people see large front-end taxes (like a sales tax), they adjust their purchasing habits accordingly.

I meant the tax-inclusive price.  Sorry for not being clear.  Most places with a high sales tax include the tax in listed prices AFAIK. 

To further clarify what I said:  there are two or three ways that this plan could affect wages and prices: 

(1) Wages stay the same.  The removal of income/payroll tax is reflected by a huge jump in paychecks and the addition of the sales tax is reflected by an equally huge jump in (tax-inclusive) prices.  This is what you are talking about. 

(2) Wages are adjusted downward to the point that take-home pay is about the same, and prices are adjusted downward equally as much, resulting in (tax-inclusive) prices that are about the same.

(3) Something between (1) and (2). 

1)  See "quality of living" is in of itself a tough thing to measure i'd say when your talking about a society where needs are met.

2&3)  What i'm saying is... that unless someone actually comes up with a direct ration it's basically just something based on "thought" and even then i doubt any ratio would be possible to create.  It's just a matter of opinion... not based by numbers.  Basicly trying to prove god to an atheist.

4)  That's why it doesn't make sense to use wealth as an indicator for this sort of thing however... which is my point.  When you base off of wealth you are basically saying "Those who are good at saving are punished vs those who aren't.

In a wealth based system... my friend and I could make the same amount of money... and he would spend it all on beer.  I would save my money.  I would pay more taxes.  I would be punished for this.  Now this anyone would qualify as unfair.

Now, say I and my friend get paid the same amout of money.  I save up my money, he spends it on beer... and I buy a property which I rent.  Now I'm paying a higher percentage of my income because i was smart and I saved my money.  Why isn't that unfair?

5) With all basic needs covered... people don't need to buy anything.  The rich pay less compared to their wealth because food, shelter etc are needed purchases meaning that it's harder for the poor and middle class to save.  If done correctly healthy food shelter etc could be provided by the government much cheaper via things like goverment restruants and foodbanks. (Big if i realize) meaning the poor have more money to spend... an no needs to spend it on. (Outside of transportation.)  There will be nothing stopping those who want to save there money from saving it... unlike the problems currently that make this impossible.

6) Good.

7) How isn't it?  How would you fix this in a progressive tax system?  Two people could just decide to not get married and live together instead then they would reap all the benefits of a lower bracket.  Tax it per household then people who room together because they're poor get blasted with higher taxes.

8)  We currently have a progressive tax system... I think that is one reason Republicans and Democrats love to give gifts to big buisnesses.  Not just the campaign financing.  Because... tax raises get you out of office.  While nobody notices the rich getting richer. (Or do and don't care as much.)

They only counted like... the Tax Plan though.  Not budgetary spending or anything.  He could cut taxes then have most departments in the government cut spending. (Theoretically.)

I mean wasn't he for a balanced buget ammendment?

He was also against the Bush tax cuts...

I agree McCain will do a much better job on fiscal responsibility than Bush II or Reagan, but the American public is totally full of crap.  If McCain starts slashing programs people will shit a brick.

They want:

1) The government to solve more of their problems

AND

2) The government to spend less of their money

Really people just need to quit bellyaching about taxes, because they will continue to bellyache about the government not doing enough regardless of what happens.

Cause the economy was good.  When the economy is doing really good you don't need to cut corporate taxes... because the economy is already good.  It's throwing money away.

When the economy is bad however....

I mean your basically saying "McCain was against using an umbrella when it was a sunny day without a cloud in the sky.... but now it's raining and he has one!   OMG FLIP FLOP!"

No, they counted spending proposals from three candidates. The cost analysis for McCain's spending proposals indicates that he would increase spending by $92 billion.

http://www.ntu.org/main/page.php?PageID=141

Also... I actually think the president could both slash government programs and handle more of the peoples problems.

Neither president looks like they will however.

What would be best would be to get in one of the hardline libretarians in for 4 years, like Barr or even Ron Paul. Have them tear apart the entire national goverment bueracracy, then let everyone else start over.

With stuff people actually need like Healthcare.

We can't support healthcare right now... but we could if we got rid of all the waste.