The point you don't make is that this so-called "fair tax" is not a tax on income; it is a tax on out go. People who make a lot of money don't spend anywhere near the percentage of their income that people who don't make that much money spend. Thus the tax burden will fall most heavily on the the income groups that spend the greatest percentage of their incomes - i.e. the working poor. I would think any idiot would know that any sales tax is regressive.

As a side note, I'd like to point out that the current so-called "progressive" tax is progressive only in the sense that the percentage of your income taken by the government for services that you're not likely to use increases with your income. There's no conceptual underpinning for this system other than it's easier to screw a small number of people than a large number of people plus, of course, they actually have money.

Finally, I'd like to point out that focusing on taxes is stupid. Taxes pay for government spending. You can't reduce (in the long term) taxes if you don't reduce the government spending that drives the need for the taxes - such as stupid wars (Iraq, Afghanistan, Drugs, etc), military spending that is more than what the entire rest of the world spends, entitlement programs that are better left to the states, etc etc.

Eager for action and hot for the game

The coming attraction, the drop of a name

They knew all the right people, they took

all the right pills

They threw outrageous parties, they paid heavenly bills

There were lines on the mirror, lines on her face

She pretended not to notice, she was caught up

in the race

Out every evening, until it was light

He was too tired to make it, she was too tired

to fight about it

Life in the fast lane

Surely make you lose your mind

Life in the fast lane, everything all the time

Life in the fast lane, uh huh

Blowin' and burnin', blinded by thirst

They didn't see the stop sign,

took a turn for the worse

And here we are. The fascists in Washington have had a grand time Blowin' & Burnin', blinded by thirst (yeah, yeah, I know - this is literary license). And now come the heavenly bills - the debt (not the deficit). Could you get even a sub-prime mortgage if your credit card payments equaled the percentage of your income that the debt repayment represents of the federal income (as opposed to net worth (GDP) which is what is usually used)?

Where exactly in our constitution does it anoint the government with the role of social transformation?

The debate should rage on. I personally would pronounce the lady in question as having two brains to rub together. Having been married and divorced, I think people who think that marriage is the greatest thing since pizza and canned beer need to have their heads examined. Like you, I think the piece of paper is meaningless if the relationship is there and worthless if it collapses. I also think that any male who actually wants to get married should be required to sign a release acknowledging that he is forfeiting his rights to liberty and the pursuit of happiness in the event of divorce (the male is the one who needs protection from the divorce laws, not the female).

And for the religious types out there, stop whatever you're doing and pay attention. Marriage is not about religion. It's about the state. You can't get married without the state's official Okey-Dokey (aka a marriage license) and marital behavior and eventual dissolution will be governed by state law, not church canon.