Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most Republican "flat tax" ideas have tax simplification as a major selling point (e.g. Ted Cruz talking about filing your taxes on a postcard); if you can simplify the implementation of the existing tax schedule, you lose that selling point.
The problem is the existing tax schedule isn’t so clear. Depreciation of assets for example. By “simplifying” tax filing without simplifying the underlying calculations, there is far less public visibility of just how broken the tax system is. A flat tax is closer to good than our current system. People that oppose flat taxes do so because they want other people to pay more. It’s that simple. See what Milton Friedman…
No, it's not.
> People that oppose flat taxes do so because they want other people to pay more. People that oppose flat taxes do so because they want other people to pay more. It’s that simple.
Some of the richest people oppose the flat tax. And they do so because they want people poorer than themselves to pay less than they would in a flat tax scheme funding the same services.
> See what Milton Friedman had to say about tax code complexity. TLDR: it gives politicians the ability to curry favor or punish and it’s the source of their real power.
Maybe Friedman said that, but it's wrong; the monopoly on violence does that, and the tax system isn't particularly special among the avenues by which the power that monopoly grants can be applied.