I suggest that the reason that there isn't sufficient public outcry against super-sized government, unaccountable bureaucracies, and runaway spending is that the true individual tax burden is unknown (and likely will remain unknowable) due to the "embedded" nature of the current tax model.  Also, the typically disengaged voter doesn't have the economic literacy necessary to connect increased taxation & regulation burdens on businesses with jacked-up retail prices.  So rather than connect, for example, at-the-pump fuel prices that are probably half again what they need to be to bigger government, the hoi polloi simply believe that "big oil" is being greedy with the price of an economic necessity.

But make the true per-person cost of state and local government plain and obvious as every sales receipt/invoice, and I suspect that even the dumbed-down masses are going to start demanding of their representation why the government costs so damn much.

What the Michigan FairTax Proposal intends is to amend Article IX of the Constitution of Michigan (Finance and Taxation) to accomplish the following:

• Replace Michigan's current income tax and all state business taxation with a sales tax on all end-use retail consumer purchases of new goods and services (excluding business-to-business transactions)

• Prohibit the restoration or enactment of other statewide taxes, or an increase in the sales tax rate, without a statewide vote of the people

• Pay monthly every household of legal state residents an amount to offset what the tax would be on the purchase of necessities, based on Federal Poverty Guidelines (non-residents, including unlawful immigrants, don't get this benefit)

• Constitutionally guarantee Revenue Sharing for counties, townships, cities, and villages

• Cap the amount of money that the state can take in through taxation to the 2006-2007 budget bottom line, adjusted annually for inflation (and decennially for population)

A retail sales tax isn't all that complicated to administer and enforce, and I think could be done with about 10% of the current crop of "revenuers" . . . which means that 90% of the Michigan Department of Treasury will be looking for work elsewhere.