If a poor guy has more money, he is also going to buy goods, which will improve the economy.  Your argument goes nowhere.

You have a weird idea that people's income has anything to do with how many hours you work.  Some people work 60 hours a week for $50,000 a year, and some people work a few hours a day and make hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Answer this.  Is it fair for everyone to pay the same tax, where poor people pay $2,000 tax and rich people pay 2,000 tax?

Manus - The poor aren't getting taxed $2000 and the rich aren't getting taxed $2000 because to be 'rich' you have to have more money than the 'poor'.

Technically, the poor could be taxed $0 if they didn't report any income.

Your argument is full of logical fallacies and assumptions.

First of all, the tax system has little to nothing to do with people's perception of government spending.  Even so, your argument suggests that poor people will care more about government spending when they are taxed more, and that rich people will care less about government spending because they pay less taxes.  I really dont see how this huge assumption works to validate your argument.

Secondly, you assume that when poor people are taxed more they will become more powerful and able to demand more wages.  That is not true at all, their wages will still be decided by the free market, and labor supply and demand will still be decided by the free market.

Thirdly, you assume that business will be better because rich people pay less taxes and poor people pay more.  Its true that rich people will have more money to spend, but for every extra dollar they get poor people get a dollar less.  Poor people participate in the economy just as much as rich people, and the only difference betweeen ten poor people buying $100 in groceries and a rich person buying a $1000 chair is what type of good was purchased.  If anything, the effect of giving rich people more money and poor people less would be a change in demand of types goods, which would have a negative short-term effect on the economy and no long-term net gain.

That didnt answer my question:

Is it fair for everyone to pay the same tax, for instance poor people pay $2,000 tax and rich people pay 2,000 tax?

If you could work it off, yes.

Paying taxes is really just transferring your obligation into something to easily exchanged.

We have been talking about collecting that effort, but in reality, it's the application of it that matters.

if we took all of government, and figured out what it cost per person, and what the average hourly rate was we were paying for, we could just then bill the people for it.

So if it came to 200 hours a person @ $40 an hour, I would be OK with that if you gave people the option to work those 200 hours for the government instead of paying. That would allow the people who put enough effort into there life, for there time to be worth more then 40 hours to just pay it, or those who are less skilled the ability to do the work themselves.

This is all hypothetical however, as it would be impossible to achieve, so being we have grown to the point where we can't give you all 200 hours of work, we can say "just go do whatever you do for 200 hours, and pay us".

It's less fare, but logistically it's the most fare option.

Here is a sad statistic. If you just did that. Assumed everyone over the age of 18 (people who can vote) had to pay equally, the "bill" to each American would be$15,500 for 2010.

yeah where's the poor guy getting money? Probably from his JOB working for the rich guy. If the rich guy had less money, maybe he wouldnt' be living it up in Hawaii and the poor guy would thus be unemployed.

And thank you for bringing up the multiplier effect. Yes, in turn, after the poor guy gets a 20 dollar tip from the rich guy, the poor guy can turn around and buy milk and diapers for his kids, and the grocery store gets money, which in turn pays off the grocery store workers and etc. etc.

For all the time some of you guys spend arguing about tax rates being raised 2% or 3% you could have made hundreds of thousands of dollars by now.

And isn't it your duty as a citizen to pay taxes? I guess everyone loves to be patriotic until it comes time to actually do something tangible to support your country, like pay your taxes. Some of you act like the government anally rapes you when it does what it has the constitutional authority to do, tax you.

With a % tax you are being taxed a % of the hours you work.

Is a everyone pays $2000 system fair?

I guess.  Wouldn't work with how much money the government currently spends though.

Now you answer this.  Is it fair for everyone to pay $399 for a PS3.

Or should consumer goods prices be raised and lowered based on your income?

Taxes really aren't any different from Cable or any other good or service.

What would we think of Sony if they charged some people more for a product and some people less?

That's a silly arguement.  "The government has the ability to do it therefore it's right."