In response to Jordan Puckett's Income Tax post.

I understand Mr. Puckett's claims that the sales tax operates completely on the amount of money you spend, the so called "tax on consumerism", however I feel he has failed to address the true effect and fiscal disparity the sales tax incurs.  While it is true that the sales tax is a simpler method of extracting money from the population, it is not a "fair tax" at all.  Mr. Puckett claims that mention the effects of the tax on the poor is "barely worth mentioning" considering many items are exempt from the sales tax.  However he failed to mention a few key points.  While a fair tax that is proportional across all levels sounds fair and wise, it is extremely misleading.  Using the word fair is simply a means for the very wealthy to trick voters into thinking they are getting a good deal.  A fair tax victimizes the poor by forcing them to actually pay more proportionally.  Let's say that you have a family earning 10 dollars a month and a family earning 100 dollars a month.  Now let's say that both families buy clothing and a computer and it costs 2 dollars, tax included.  Those 2 dollars consist of 20% of the poorer families income, while the richer family is paying 2% of their income. This leaves the poorer family with 8 dollars to pay rent, buy a car, pay for gas, buy non-essentials, and pay utility bills.  Now of course one could argue that the richer family would buy more luxury goods, perhaps a luxury tax would be involved, but in terms of the sales tax/consumption the richer family would have to spend ten times as much as the poorer family in order to be "fairly" taxed.  While it is mentioned that many items such as groceries and baby products are exempt from the sales tax, many items that are crucial to surviving in the 21st century such as computers and the internet.
In terms of my personal beliefs, I find it hard to believe that millionaires and billionaires will pay the same with a sales tax, as opposed to an income tax.  Perhaps a  better solution would be implementing a higher income tax for the mega wealthy, and instituting a fair tax instead of an income tax on the middle class.
Essentially I don't think that a "fair tax" is nearly as fair as it sounds, and while the income tax is a beast not easily tamed, at least it forces the wealthy to pay a small part their fair share.  I encourage you to read about regressive taxes in order to understand my hesitation with a fair tax.

       When viewing the Texas Government at face value, one might find it chaotic, messy, a relic of an older era.  In all of those observations they would be correct, and yet there is a method to the madness.  The area that I would like to focus on is the Legislature and the positives, and negatives of our system.

         The Texas Legislature is in session every other year, and this does create some problems.  This holdover from the agricultural age no longer reflects the fast and furious urban lifestyle that many Texans live.  In the last one hundred years Texas has shifted from a primarily rural and agricultural community into a large, sprawling urban state.  With massive influxes of immigrants, job seekers, and other population shifts it seems that our current legislature cannot effectively govern our state with such rapid changes occurring.  One need only observe our legislature at the end of the session to observe the chaos and rushing that is required to do the job semi-correctly.  Some people take issue with house members and voting in place of their comrades, claiming that the representatives must cast their own vote.  They complain that it is undemocratic for our legislators to not be present for every vote, and yet all this is contradictory.  In order for our Legislature to function properly, it must become a full-time body, not a part-time body that barely makes up for the ever changing Texan situation. 

        In the place of a full time legislature, Texas seems to have more functional departments that operate more or less independently, however this is not the way it should be. While the department heads are more or less elected, they hold power much stronger than the legislature in the sense that they are accountable to almost no one.  Without a strong legislature providing strong guidance to these departments, the government becomes more and more of a sort of plutocratic-oligarchy.  Therefore the legislators should meet more often, and have increased power in order to more effectively govern the state.

       Essentially Texas is no longer an agricultural state, and this change should be reflected within out government.  While it is true that many of our departments operate very well within our state, making up for the legislature's short comings, it is a travesty that our primary legislative body does not operate to it's full efficiency and that state elected officials hold more clout.