Timothy Noah writes that this year's Economic Report to the President proposes a national consumption tax to replace the tiered income tax system we currently have. There is always the possibility of exempting "subsistence goods" such as food (I know that Illinois, for example, exempts food from sales tax), but this would still be vastly different distribution of income than we have today. A flat sales tax is generally viewed as regressive because the poor tend to spend a higher proportion of their income (living "paycheck to paycheck") than the rich. But even if these effects are taken out of the picture, a flat tax is very different from the progressive rates we have now.

One thing I've never understood about this equation: if most of our tax revenue really comes from the rich, then won't putting a bigger proportion of the tax burden on the poor have a negligible effect on revenue? Either tax rates for the rich won't fall very much, or we'll have to have huge spending cuts.