You tend to fling the word "strawman" about quite liberally. Doesn't it sort of imply that what I say isn't a fact? That you think I'm wrong that the forced redistribution of wealth is currently the main function of the Federal Government? As you point out in your correction post, this also includes the mandatory entitlements, which despite the shiny labels and myths about "insurance," are in fact welfare, which even the most ardent defender of Social Security will admit if you back them up against a wall.

The so-called "Trust Fund" was a flat out lie the second someone invented the concept. Excess Social Security money (most flows right back out to recipients in the finest Ponzi manner) is instantly "borrowed" by the general budget the second it hits the Treasury. The "Trust Fund" is a thirty-foot high pile of T-bills, or I.O.U.s. Any private entity that ran its finances like the government routinely does would be thrown so far back into jail they'd have to pump air to them.

Total right now, of just mandatory spending alone, is $1.18 trillion dollars, or about 56 percent of the entire budget. This does NOT include the other welfare programs, food stamps, corporate welfare, farm supports, or any of myriads of other wealth redistribution programs to both rich and poor in the discretionary part of the budget, and I don't feel inspired to tally up all the rest.

There is no way to change the Robin Hood function of government. It's bred in the bone, now, and nobody is going to vote for anyone who wants to turn off the gravy train. Half the people I talk to don't even comprehend what I'm talking about when I discuss forced wealth redistribution. The people here are the brightest I have talked to, and most of them see absolutely nothing wrong with most of the Federal Budget being used to bribe voters and make them dependent on the State. In the meantime, I live with a tax rate that exceeds that paid by medieval serfs. Tea was tossed into the harbor for a tax of two pence to the pound.

I'm working on my taxes now, and as someone who is self-employed, I get hit nice and hard without the soft, cotton-candy illusion of withholding. Probably the main reason I'm so pissy on this subject this time of year.

I heartily agree with the idea of switching from income taxes to a sales tax. It has a lot going for it, not least of which is not having to bare your economic soul to the government database each year. The chance of it being adopted is that of a snowball on the surface of Sirius, since the current income tax system is one of the major means for politicans to wield power and grant favors to donors and voters. Even if it did happen, no doubt after a few years a sales tax would have five hundred pages of "exceptions" and "clarifications" granting relief to special interest groups and industries.