In a market-based society, all decisions are driven by the decisions made at checkouts. That's where all of the overhead costs of civilization should be visible in sales taxes, all of the way up the chain (VAT) until it is cost-prohibitive for billionaires to buy anything useless. The true 'scam' is that prices should be low for things we don't need, and that people shouldn't get paid to be citizens (cannon fodder) and stewards of their own places.

Modern Monetary Theory has come up with all kinds of magic hoops for government to 'create' money by going into debt and letting bankers inflate prices with easy credit, but without taxes to pay back those debts, it all depends on infinitely available land, minerals and energy that only exist on 5 more planets that we haven't found yet.

"But, but, but! Sales taxes are REGRESSIVE!"

yup.

But they're a lot less regressive than a dead planet and the income tax code's corruption.

We even have the basic proposal: the FairTax. Democrats only need to call the Republicans bluff and negotiate a higher rate and a prebate high enough to be UBI and health (not insurance).

Why is this so complicated?