Ramesh Ponnuru, Columnist

Gary Johnson's Unfair, Expensive National Sales Tax

The middle class and the elderly would be hit hard, and evasion would be rampant.

The tax man.

Photographer: George Frey/Getty Images
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Gary Johnson, a former governor of New Mexico, is running for president as the Libertarian Party’s nominee to draw attention to his ideas. One of those ideas is a 28 percent national sales tax to replace the federal income, payroll and corporate taxes. He would repeal the 16th Amendment, which authorized the income tax, to make his plan stick.

But the more attention his idea gets, the less attractive it will be.