I hear two powerful, fundamental barriers to reform, and both are basically political. First, First is the social engineering we do with taxes. Most people don't realize that abut 1/3 of the people pay no taxes, and a large percentage of them are actually getting money out of the system by credits. The new program will only exaggerate this abuse. I say we can choose to directly write checks to the lower income reaches of the economy. That is a variation of socialism, and we're doing it already; for my part, I don't like it but I believe in a democracy we can make those choices. The abusive part is to hide it behind a tax system.

The other barrier comes from the middle and upper classes who feel they benefit from real estate deductions etc. They rightly believe that if tax benefits to home ownership were eliminated, the value of their real estate investments would drop. In other words, home costs are artificially inflated, ultimately benefiting only two industries: homebuilders and realtors. Why? Becasue if your house value goes up, so does the one you'd like to buy, so we end up with people buying excessively large and expensive houses trying to game the system. Our country does not benefit from this, and we have to find a way to withdraw federal subsidies for homeownership.

So what Congress has done is to co-opt political support from virtually everyone, such that we are all afraid to act. So far it has worked. In the meantime, they have packed the tax code with goodies and giveaways to anybody who offered a campaign contribution. Capitalizing on our fear, they have obscured real spending priorities and the real state of our government's finances. What we as citizens need to do is to overcome our fear and press for reform, trying to convince everyone we can that Congress must be FORCED to change. My proposal bears resemblance to what several others have suggested, including Mr. Forbes:

1. Establish a level relative to the federal poverty level below which we do not tax.
2. Calculate the total amount of revenue required to support the current year's spending approved by Congress. Proportion this amount by an agreed percentage between corporate and personal taxes.
3. Simply estimate the total income of all Americans, and calculate the percentage of this sum that is required to balance the budget.
4. In regard to capital gains not from farms and personal, primary housing (which should be exempt, in my view), allow the gain to be corrected for inflation based on CPI, then tax it as real income, which it is.
5. No death tax.
6. Real estate freebies are tough, but the distortion must end– over time. I can't do the math here, but a system must be established to allow it to be phased out over, say, ten years.

Your audience is smart and sophisticated, and I'd love to hear some response.

No federal income taxes, no payroll taxes, no self employment taxes, no capitol gains tax, no gift or estates taxes, no alternative minimum taxes, no corporate taxes, no payroll withholding, no taxes on social security, no personal tax forms, no personal or business income tax record keeping and no personal income tax filing.

The federal government is funded through a national sales tax, the book suggest a rate of 23%, which is already embedded into every product we already purchase today. But everyone would pay it, honest people, drug dealers and illegal immigrants and so forth.

Corporate money in the trillions, 13 trillion US dollars are sitting in offshore tax haven banks accounts to avoid the US tax code. That money would come back to the US. Jobs would come back from overseas because they would know their tax liability at the start and not have to waste time and money determining the tax consequences of business decisions.

Mr. Forbes is right, it is going to take the people of the US to band together to get this on the front page of every politician mind. Write your President, Senator and Congressman. Most politicians and all lobbyist are against the Fair Tax because it takes power from the government and stops the millions of dollars that lobbyist are paid to rig the current tax code to suit the highest bidder.

Finally, Fox Business news needs to educate all their viewers and spread the word. Alexa Glick please get the ball rolling on a national level, this will only make America stronger and freer.