This is when you know you've got a guy: "And if you're so proud of Norway, why don't you drag your ass over there and stop making my country a basket case."
Texas schoolbooks? Interesting to note here that socialists will tell you that pure socialism, as it was intended, was never what was practised in the former Soviet Union -- same has been said about the lack of pure capitalism being practised here. Human nature probably can't sustain either. Its complicated.
Everyone pays taxes every time they spend money. Any taxing scheme based on net income is ripe for creative accounting & fraud. If your tax rate is 25% than your states 8% sales tax is really 10% of your pretax dollars. Add the plethora of other special taxes and you realize over 40% of your pre tax dollars go to taxes and fees. Gas, tele com, property, bottled water etc. The US economy is not a complex model if you filter the baffling and ingenious taxing schemes. The economy is good when the volume of transactions are growing. The simplest and fairest taxing scheme is a 1% federal tax on every exchange of a dollar. Abolish the IRS, annual tax filings and issue any one interested in transacting in US $ a Treasury Account with a debit card.
Thing is taxes are baked in the way news of the prospects of an equity is baked in. And, the wealthy, when they negotiate for their salary, have tax implications accounted for in what they want to clear. If gasoline were all of a sudden not taxed I doubt we'd get the break in price at the pump. Oil companies would determine that we've becomed conditioned to a certain range of price and just pocket the difference. All non-income tax taxes are much less burdensome for high income earners.
How much are we all being taxed by the Invisible Tax - inflation? They try to hide it by reducing the content amount sold in packages at the supermarket while charging the same or more, but it's a pretty stupid attempt to conceal it...