Comment by tzs

> Liberals vehemently opposed the idea, calling it 'regressive', meaning it would be socially backwards, but the idea held appeal as a simple and fair way of "taxing everyone equally"

I'm not sure what you mean by "socially backwards".

"Regressive" and "progressive" are terms of art in tax law and theory. A tax is regressive if people with less income pay a higher percentage of their income toward that tax than do people with more income. Progressive is the opposite.

Sales taxes are regressive because most people with lower income necessarily spend a higher percent of their income than most people with higher income, and so even if a sales tax is the same percentage of the sale price of items lower income people end up spending a higher percentage of their income on sales tax.