Nice Take Down of the National Sales Tax

And it's in the WSJ of all places. This editorial shows how the numbers are bogus, and deliberately so.
Bruce Bartlett's basic points:

• This idea originally sprung from the head of Scientology, because of their clashes with the IRS^¹.
• It assumes growth rates in the US economy that appear to come from the planet Skaro.
• They use very bad math to misquote the percentage of tax^².
• It has the federal government paying the tax to artificially inflate revenues.
• It applies the tax to everything, including education and health care.
• It creates a de facto national welfare program.^³
• It understates the rate needed to balance the budget.

It should be noted that this Mr. Bartlett was senior economic staff under Bush I, this is no Democratic partisan here.

¹Basically they claim that a 30% tax is a 23% tax by figuring it backward. If you take $1.00 and add 30%, you have $1.30, but $0.30 is only 23% of 1.30.
^²The required tax rate for this to replace revenues 57%, it goes up to 64% if it exempts things like food, education, and health care, and 89% if there are problems with evasion.
^³It creates a transfer payment system in which people get money back on a weekly basis depending on wages.