Get ready.  The lefties are going to take care of us real good.  

<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/26/AR200905
2602909_pf.html>

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"There is a growing awareness of the need for fundamental tax reform,"
Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) said in an interview. "I think a VAT and a
high-end income tax have got to be on the table."

"A VAT is a tax on the transfer of goods and services that ultimately is
borne by the consumer. Highly visible, it would increase the cost of
just about everything, from a carton of eggs to a visit with a lawyer.
It is also hugely regressive, falling heavily on the poor. But VAT
advocates say those negatives could be offset by using the proceeds to
pay for health care for every American -- a tangible benefit that would
be highly valuable to low-income families.
Liberals dispute that notion. "You could pay for it regressively and
have people at the bottom come out better off -- maybe. Or you could pay
for it progressively and they'd come out a lot better off," said Bob
McIntyre, director of the nonprofit Citizens for Tax Justice, which has
a health financing plan that targets corporations and the rich.
A White House official said a VAT is "unlikely to be in the mix" as a
means to pay for health-care reform. "While we do not want to rule any
credible idea in or out as we discuss the way forward with Congress, the
VAT tax, in particular, is popular with academics but highly
controversial with policymakers," said Kenneth Baer, a spokesman for
White House Budget Director Peter Orszag.
Still, Orszag has hired a prominent VAT advocate to advise him on health
care: Ezekiel Emanuel, brother of White House chief of staff Rahm
Emanuel and author of the 2008 book "Health Care, Guaranteed."
Meanwhile, former Federal Reserve chairman Paul A. Volcker, chairman of
a task force Obama assigned to study the tax system, has expressed at
least tentative support for a VAT.
"Everybody who understands our long-term budget problems understands
we're going to need a new source of revenue, and a VAT is an obvious
candidate," said Leonard Burman, co-director of the Tax Policy Center, a
joint project of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, who
testified on Capitol Hill this month about his own VAT plan. "It's
common to the rest of the world, and we don't have it."