As your representative in Washington, I'll work diligently to cut taxes and slash bureaucracy. As a matter of fact, I'll support eliminating the federal income tax ... and until and unless I can get it eliminated, I'll support cutting it at every opportunity.

What I won't support is the so-called "Fair Tax" -- a national sales tax to replace the income tax -- advocated by some members of Congress. House co-sponsors of "Fair Tax" legislation include my opponent, Congressman Todd Akin.

What's wrong with the "Fair Tax?" A lot.

First and foremost, understand this: The "Fair Tax" is not a tax cut. Its proponents claim that it is "revenue neutral," i.e. that Americans would pay just as much in taxes through the "Fair Tax" as they did through the taxes it replaced.

Secondly, the "Fair Tax" would put America on the dole. Every man, woman and child in the United States would receive a monthly check from the government. In theory, that check would represent an advance rebate (proponents call it a "prebate") of part of the tax. In fact, eligibility for the check would be completely unconnected to actual payment of the tax.

Thirdly, while proponents claim that the "Fair Tax" would "eliminate the IRS," exactly the opposite is true. A federal tax bureaucracy would still be required to administer the "prebate" program, and to police interstate tax fraud and "prebate" fraud ... and fifty more bureaucracies would have to be created to assess and collect the tax at the state level.

Fourthly, proponents of the "Fair Tax" are deceptive in describing how large it would be. They characterize it as a 23% sales tax, when in fact it is a 30% tax.

Sales taxes have always been calculated "exclusively" -- the tax is the percentage of the price of the product, added on top. If you buy something that costs $1.00, and the tax is 5%, your price at the register is $1.05. Under the "Fair Tax" that $1.00 product would come to $1.30, not $1.23. Proponents calculate the tax "inclusively" (30 cents is 23% of $1.30) to hide nearly one fourth of its impact on your wallet.

Finally, there's a good chance that the "Fair Tax" would wreck the American economy in transition. The tax is assessed on new, but not used, goods. Care to guess what will happen to our nation's automotive and homebuilding industries when the price of new cars and homes jumps by 30% and the price of used cars and homes doesn't? Time and supply/demand will eventually bring the prices of used goods back into proportion with those of new goods ... but until we get there, whole sectors of the economy will be, at best, on life support.

The "Fair Tax" is at least as bad as the income tax in every way, and worse in some ways. It's not a tax cut. It's not a tax elimination. It wouldn't end the bureaucracy associated with taxation. And it would create a new, universal welfare entitlement that would quickly become institutionalized and difficult to modify, let alone end.

I propose elimination of the income tax. Because I realize that this is unlikely in the near term, I also propose, as an interim measure, regular "bottom up" cuts to the income tax through increasing the personal exemption each year. This approach would provide tax cuts for all, while entirely eliminating income taxes for more low-income individuals each and every year. I'll discuss this proposal in more detail in another article.