my apologies if i offended your senses….i am not talking about the down trodden of the Indus River…..maybe i should have said "the american poor" ….those with all the trappings, such as A/C, healthcare….etc….and pay nothing in Fed taxes. I know. I was once one of them. Over 100,000,000, at minimum, receive the benefits of the federal government and pay nothing, and most of those have income of some sort…..but income tax is not the answer ; a consumer tax is ; you want to spend, you pay ; encourages savings and frugalness but even those folks need to pay something into the system ; tax groceries and you catch everyone, except those off the grid like the Amish ; but keep up this phony "soak the rich" system that doesn't work, and they just transfer the cost back to the masses through other means, such as inflation, property taxes, blah, blah, blah….i guess we might just be pissing in the wind no matter what we do