QUICK QUESTION ON CAIN AND THE CONSUMPTION TAX

Just out of curiosity, I have a conundrum for you to consider. There are conservative Constitutional Tea Party types who have been, for the last two + years, up in arms over the idea that the Federal government is going to take all of our medical information and place it in a Federal data base for scrutiny by anonymous bureaucrats in order to control our health care.

So why is it, now that Herman Cain comes along and suggests that every financial and trade action that a private citizen takes should be placed into a Federal tax collection system, no one is up in arms about that? Where are the Tea Party people who find this to be an intrusion on our private lives and another assault on the 4th Amendment of the Constitution? Why is our medical information any more important on the privacy issue than every purchase we make? Who the heck are Herman Cain, Art Laffer, and Neal Boortz to say that reporting to the Federal government every time you buy a pack of gum, a beer, a haircut, or a box of nails is any business of the Federal government?

Buehler? Buehler?? Anyone??

And don't come after me with the idea that we have to report our income to the Federal government being any better or worse. I am saying that Cain's idea of the consumption tax is definitely worse and, in my estimation, an even greater intrusion than the reporting of income. The consumption tax is about behavior. And if you think the Federal bureaucrats are not into the power trip of controlling behaviors, then you haven't been listening to the woman who is married to the President of the United States, however illegitimate they both are. And you might be looking for the book by one of Mr. O's Czars, Cass Sunstein, called "Nudge." (I refuse to link that book here, but you can google it and find it for yourself.)

So, are there any sane Tea Partiers out there who see the problem here? Or am I the only one?