COMPARE THE LEVIATHAN OBAMACARE TO THE FAIR TAX AND WHAT DO YOU GET?

I've begun looking at candidates for a U.S. Senate seat in North Carolina to replace the Obamabot Kay Hagan.  We have a crowd stepping up for that seat, 5 running so far.  They all seem like nice folks.  One woman and four men.  One is a doctor and one is a medical nurse practitioner.   One a broadcaster personality.  Two libertarians.  One is the current Speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives.  One a pastor, representing the Christian conservative side of things.  There is rumored subterfuge, some of which has credibility with Karl Rove backing one or two of them.  Rove's rumored scheme is to back one of them as a spoiler to knock out the most likely Tea Party contender.  Party politics is becoming uglier.  I'm sure it always was and I am just seeing more of it.  

So as I've been looking at these candidates I am finding one or two of them are promoting the Fair Tax.  Red flags for me, if you have read my former posts about that.  All of the candidates are saying they would make the effort to get rid of Obamacare.  Green lights all around on that one.  But what is a person thinking... that they know Obamacare is bad, but they want to say the Fair Tax is good? Am I crazy or are these folks disconnected from reality?

Both Obamacare and the Fair Tax are leviathan programs of taxation.  Both programs grab a huge amount of the economy for control by the Federal government.  Oh...yeah..those Fair Tax guys say it doesn't control anything, but just taxes new goods and all services.  They say you would be in control by deciding to purchase or not.  Uh huh.  Obamacare taxes medical devices and insurance policies.  Obamacare takes over 1/6th of the economy.  The Fair Tax would take over most of the economy, all but the 'used goods' part.  You don't have to pay the taxes unless you want to get your hair cut or buy a new house or car, or new clothes or dishes, or pay someone to wash your car, or buy Christmas gifts for your family.   But that's o.k.  You don't have to pay Obamacare taxes unless you buy an insurance policy, or want a knee replacement or a pump for your diabetes medications.  No problem.  What?

Both Obamacare and the Fair Tax require a new IRS scheme of collections.  Both require a new technological solution of reporting your activities to the Federal government.  Both are expensive, comprehensive, unwieldy, and use an untrustworthy government bureaucracy to implement all of the processes.  

I'm going to say the obvious once again about the Fair Tax.  The Revolution that created this nation was begun by fighting off consumption taxes by a controlling government.  What has happened since then?  Today we have people promoting themselves as patriots who are promoting consumption taxes.  What is the difference between Obamacare which taxes your health insurance and the Fair Tax which taxes your purchases of goods and services?  Again, both using the Federal government to decide what will be taxed and using technology to track your purchases?  At least if the tax is based on your income, the minutiae of your daily life is not tracked by the IRS.  Granting that tracking everything by the Federal government is now becoming the norm, there is another disconnect; some of the same people who like the Fair Tax also say they are against Smart Meters and Black Boxes which track every kw hour you use and every mile you drive.  This gives me whiplash!    

Surely we can do better than this.  Libertarians, such as the Reason Foundation, are lately promoting 'public private partnerships' for roads using tolls, too.  They pretend this is a "free market" solution, when it is nothing but a taxpayer guaranteed profit scheme for some corporate entities who manage infrastructure projects.  The Fair Tax is nothing more than a different name for the VAT (value added tax) used in the EU.  And as long as you are using VAT type taxation, then just pile on carbon taxes while you are at it.  As far as I can see, the Fair Tax is a VAT tax and is all too similar to Obamacare taxes.  Instead of, or in addition to, taxing your healthcare, the Fair Tax taxes everything else. I just can't get excited about a candidate who wants to promote that for America.  I want the Federal government taken down to its proper size...the one where DC is only in charge of national security and foreign relations.  All of this domestic manipulation of citizens' personal lives needs to bite the dust as all other socialist tyrannies eventually do.  Let's get rid of it now while we still can.

I'd say I'm confused, but I don't think I am.  Something doesn't compute with this kind of thinking.  And I'm definitely NOT happy about candidates promoting themselves as conservative constitutionalists, but are then promoting programs that are anything but constitutional solutions to shrinking the out of control Federal bureaucracy.

I'm continuing to look at the candidates for this Senate seat.  I hope I can land on one that makes me happy.  And if I do find that candidate, is it one who can win?  The search continues.

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?