I did mean 5% sales tax to clarify, I typed too quickly before.
And it wouldn’t eliminate the 13 trillion dollar debt instantly, but it would pretty much eliminate the deficit, which would make us profit and then shave down the debt. Though to be fair, the country is MEANT to operate with a deficit (the founding fathers themselves started it and planned for it). Since the people of the US own most of our debt, they profit on the interest and it helps the economy. We just need to get back down to about a 75% of GDP debt, rather than a 1 trillion shy of 100% debt.
And you seem to be mistaken over what a VAT is and what I’m talking about. VAT is a value added tax, where when one thing of goods is upgraded to another thing of goods, you tax THAT step. For example, if I take the raw material of steal and turn it into a car frame. That is NOT a sales tax.
And I don’t really need a source to explain that a 5% sales tax would take down the debt and deficit. Our GDP is 14 trillion dollars. 5% of that is 700 billion dollars. Since the deficit is not a running total, but calculated new every year, almost every year that would lead to us having surplus funds. If Bush had the 5% sales tax on all purchases, all but 1 year of his presidency would’ve seen surplus money in the budget, rather than pretty incredible deficits.