Senator Slidell argues that we should have a national sales tax of one cent for every dollar of purchases as a means of eliminating the budget deficit. Senator Slidell argues that such a sales tax is fair to all and would raise an enormous sum of tax money and would thus eliminate the budget deficit. But in fact a sales tax is not fair: It falls heavily on the poor, who can least afford it. And besides, it would probably slow down the economy and thus would not actually raise much, if any, additional tax revenue. So when we carefully examine Senator Slidell's argument for a sales tax, we find that it is not very convincing