Mankiw does not understand the problem

How to Increase Taxes on the Rich (If You Must)

He is stuck from writing a fraudulent text book and cannot escape his priors.

He wants a value added tax to be re-distributed to individuals on a flat basis.

Right mechanism, wrong recipients.  Instead we should distribute the tax once per budget cycle to the states, on a flat basis.  It is the skew in the Senate that is leading to collapse of the small states and a sudden halt, plus likely civil war. It is the cause of our degenerating economy.

Mankiw will never see this problem, it is not in his simple minded text which has no theory of irregular scales in production, no sense of value added network effect in Congress.  Fails to understand the arbitrage conditions.

He will miss the important stuff for the rest of his life until smart students quit buying his text. Ignore Mankiw, read the pages I post to the right of this blog. If we rapidly abandon his book he may be forced to get real clues.