I fail to understand how you can justify a poll tax on the entire population, yet exclude a significant proportion of that population from programmes that this tax is paying for.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
A flat-rate poll tax would be politically unsustainable; even with a rebate scheme, the package would have an unacceptable impact on certain types of household.
We have too many politicians who are poll-driven to excess. Polls are important. You've got to know what the public is thinking, but you can't let them drive you completely.
My early years as a political activist were dominated by the poll tax.
The problem is government spends too much. So raising taxes is what politicians do, instead of reducing spending.
The biggest and most deadly 'tax' rate on the poor comes from a loss of various welfare state benefits - food stamps, housing subsidies and the like - if their income goes up.
So if we are really concerned about generating more taxes, we ought to be investing in our people, not taking away the kinds of resources that contribute to their ability to become greater taxpayers in this country.
A Harris poll I've seen says only 12 percent of the electorate names taxes as one of the most important issues facing the nation. Voters put tax cuts dead last, behind education, Social Security, health care, Medicare and poverty.
In Britain, polls show large majorities in favour of mansion taxes and higher taxes on the finance sector.
We should be forced to give so many exemptions and concessions (inevitably to the benefit of high spending authorities in Inner London) that the flat-rate poll tax would rapidly become a surrogate income tax.
The problem is not that people are taxed too little, the problem is that government spends too much.