Should the country replace the current federal tax system with a 23 percent sales tax?

That is one of the issues being forwarded by Republican presidential candidate Gary Johnson, the former governor of New Mexico. The candidate was in Concord on Aug. 4, speaking to employees and voters at the Cityside Grille on Manchester Street, enjoying coffee and eggs (sans the toast, which the governor didn't order). Johnson said the sales tax, which he called "a fair tax," would levy a 23 percent tax on every item sold. At the same time, individuals would receive pre-bate checks to offset some of the tax.

The national sales tax proposal has been floating around for years, with Johnson noting that "it's not an easy sell ... it's not an easy concept ... however, it's simple and it's fair." Johnson noted that there were built-in taxes into the cost of all retail sales items, in some form, during the process of creating the products, making the price tag of items artificially high. The price of items would drop in the wake of the new tax, since those built-in taxes would no longer be charged at the point of creation.

But what if the companies didn't lower the built in tax costs to consumers? Johnson said eventually, it would create more competition between vendors, with each company lowering the costs or "bleeding it out" of the product costs, in order to stay in business. In New Mexico, the state has a gross services tax, "which was an easy tax to collect," he said. Most state structures already have tax collection agencies already in place to collect the federal receipts of the sales tax. So on the federal level, there would be a windfall in savings, probably into the billions, for not having to have Internal Revenue Service employees collecting tax forms from individuals and corporations, he said. Johnson also predicted that with the sales tax, corporations would have more money to hire new employees, since they would not be paying any taxes at the point of creation.

Tax fairness is also an issues that gets solved with the plan, according to Johnson, who noted that everyone would pay the same percentage, with people who made more money being taxed more based on their consumption.

"It's also based on the whole notion that everyone pays their fair share," he said.

The campaign Johnson is waging what some might seem is an unorthodox campaign for the nomination, coming at issues from a different angle than most of the Republican field. He advocates the legalization of marijuana and civil unions for homosexual couples, probably some of the hottest "third rails" in Republican primary politics. Johnson has also stressed the need to get out of foreign entanglements such as the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, a position which puts him next to U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, against the rest, who often advocate more, not less, military spending overseas to fight the seemingly unending war on terror. His tone is decided small "L" libertarian with a heaping helping of small government ethos, with a dash of frank-speak and dry humor.