Criticism Aside, 'FairTax' Boosts Huckabee Campaign

GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee has supported what backers call "FairTax," in which a retail sales tax would replace the current tax system. (By Phelan M. Ebenhack -- Associated Press)

Nonetheless, FairTax's detractors are legion. In Tax Notes, Bartlett spent 15 pages attacking the proposal and its advocates, whom he accuses of being ignorant or dishonest. Dale W. Jorgenson, a Harvard University economist and elder statesman on tax overhaul, called the FairTax "reform by focus group."

"These people have to be taken seriously," Jorgenson said of the organized campaign for the FairTax. "They're not terribly experienced in politics. But they have this grass-roots movement out there. They have cornered the market, and nobody in the political world is out there saying this is nuts."

Alvin Rabushka, the father of the flat tax and a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, said anyone who professes to be an independent businessman or contractor would label every purchase as a wholesale transaction or business necessity, because business-to-business purchases would not be subject to the tax.

"For me at least, a national retail sales tax is an attractive idea," Rabushka wrote on his blog this month. "Only fools pay retail."

Charmaine Yoest, a Huckabee spokeswoman, said that all tax systems have their flaws, and that Huckabee would address issues of compliance as president.

In all these criticisms, FairTax advocates see sour grapes. Ken Hoagland, a spokesman for Americans for Fair Taxation, said Bush's tax panel was headed by tax lobbyists, including former senators Connie Mack (R-Fla.) and John Breaux (D-La.), intent on maintaining the current system and their livelihoods.

As for Rabushka, a hero in many conservative tax circles, "This is a guy who's been trying to sell an idea on tax reform for years and gotten nowhere with it," said David G. Tuerck, an economist at Suffolk University in Boston and a FairTax advocate. "He's showing some signs of panic, now that we've got at least one serious presidential candidate backing us."