Sometimes it takes an outsider, I guess. Cain’s 9-9-9 Plan — which brought to the table a proposal for real tax reform and was developed in part by Art Laffer — has now been followed up upon by Rick Perry’s flat tax proposal (Gingrich has one, as well), which has received the endorsement of Steve Forbes.
Predictably, the left is smirking and sniffing and calling both plans “radical.” Also predictably, the GOP establishment — big government Republicans believing the climate right for their return to the trough — is “concerned” by such proposals, preferring the more “pragmatic” approach of, say, a Mitt Romney, who promises to make promises, and to tinker around the edges of the Leviathan so that we can comfortably keep kicking the can down the road.
NRO:
Chris Chocola, Club for Growth president, called Rick Perry’s new tax plan “massively pro-growth” in a statement today.
“Rick Perry’s plan for tax reform would be massively pro-growth. A Flat Tax like the one proposed by Perry would unleash years of economic growth if it is passed into law,” Chocola said in a statement. “Furthermore, eliminating the tax on dividends and capital gains would immediately add trillions of dollars in new wealth to the economy, benefiting all Americans. Perry clearly understands that revitalizing the economy should start with a complete overhaul of a tax code that has nearly choked economic growth to death. Conservatives looking for a champion to carry the banner of a pro-growth tax reform will surely rally behind this bold proposal.”
Chocola also took a jab at Mitt Romney in his statement, saying he was “disappointed that Governor Romney has yet to embrace a flat or fair tax.”
“He would be wise to avoid using class warfare when comparing his current proposals to those of Governor Perry or Herman Cain,” Chocola added.
For years I’ve been crying into the wilderness, asking so-called conservatives / classical liberals to judge their intelligentsia not by their (often incestuous) resumes, but rather by their policy and candidate prescriptions. The same people who scolded TEA Party types for balking at egregious compromises with Obama, and who trumpeted the coming of an Arab Spring, and who now tell us that it is really only Romney or Perry who are “serious” candidates (while oftentimes in the same breath working to dismiss Perry) are active once again, having disguised themselves as sympathetic to movement conservatism, working to drive the narrative that what the GOP wants and needs from a candidate is a kind of Michael Dukakis-like technocratic pragmatism — essentially, a moderate stance coupled with the ability to efficiently manage an ever-expanding Nanny State.
These are the people who gave us John McCain in 2008. These are the people who stood by and let the left savage Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann. These are the people who carped that, had it not been for the TEA Party, the GOP might have control of the Senate — and who today blame the TEA Party for giving us a “weak Republican field”. These are the people who told us that Huntsman and Pawlenty and Daniels were all top-tier candidates. These are the people who argued that Cain should have been booted from the stage after his first couple debates. These are the people who insisted we treat Obama with kid gloves, who called us Visigoths for noting the facts about his past and rise, who chided us for our descriptions while working overtime to keep alive the myth of Obama as a mere misguided moderate, even as the evidence piled up that he is, in fact, precisely the man any fair look at his history would predict he’d be. These are the people who invoke Reagan for convenience, yet insist that the era of Reagan is over — and that conservatives had better embrace big government and an “active Executive” lest they find themselves a regional Party.
In short, these are the attendants and court of the ruling class — and as I’ve been arguing for some time now, Party no longer even matters.
It’s time we faced a rather uncomfortable fact: the leadership of the GOP is a big government cadre working to keep their conservative base in check and away from the reins of power. The TEA Party frightens them. Conservative candidates embarrass them. They are pro-status quo — and why wouldn’t they be?
They are enjoying a rotating power arrangement under which they and their leftwing intellectual counterparts inside the Beltway merely switch back and forth between being the critic and being the criticized, being the party in power or being the party looking to take it back.
An upset to the status quo might jeopardize that arrangement. And we can’t have that just because a bunch of uppity rubes have decided government’s getting too vast…
Does Perry’s plan come with a catchy slogan like “9-9-9 means jobs-jobs-jobs”?
Handy dandy Perry plan link.
Predictably, the left is smirking and sniffing and calling both plans “radical.”
And they’d know.
What’s wrong with “radical” when the status quo is unsustainable?
She said, giving OWS a really great slogan.
So – sometimes you DO need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows…
There is a deep and important thrust to the meaning of simplicity in the promulgation of law. That is, law which is too complex to be understood is as such law which cannot be right in itself. It’s therefore no damned wonder that the simplicity of both the Cain and the Perry proposals for tax reform appeals to everyone.
I’m fulla mischief, let’s jeopardize the arrangement.
Just heard my first Cain radio ad, kinda weak. “Why doesn’t President Obama want you to see my 9-9-9 plan? He doesn’t want me to win”. Slightly reminiscent of those ads I don’t really see 1000 times a day asking why “they” don’t want me to know about your work-at-home plan for making $27.50/hour.
Gingrich has a comparison of his and Perry’s plans.
Newt’s claim as to Perry’s view of the Payroll tax — “No change in existing payroll tax” — is disingenuous at best, and outright dishonest at worst.
Newt dishonest? Say it ain’t so!
at least the hermanator is taking it to scoamf
It’s nice that Perry and Cain and Newt have these plans, and that they’re putting the ideas out there.
Here’s a dirty little secret: We don’t have to elect you President to use your plan.
Even if SCOAMF gets through the gate again, doesn’t mean the HoR can’t write up and pass a bill enacting the flat/fair tax into law. Just means O’Bumble has to veto it and hope it doesn’t get overridden. (assuming the Senate plays ball. Which, by 2012, will likely be out of Dem hands)
I really think that is the whole point, Darth. We are having a conversation about our stupid confiscatory tax system and what to do about it. Romney is just faking it, but the other three are actually putting it out there front and center.
I don’t know sdferr, here’s the relevant line from the Perry plan (last paragraph under the heading “Institute Individual Flat Income Tax Rate of 20%”)
Predictably, the left is smirking and sniffing and calling both plans “radical.”
“Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice; moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” –AuH2O
Agreed, leigh. My fervent wish is that the primaries turn into a referendum on reforming government spending and taxation. Even if Diana Ross ends up singing Mittens’ theme song at the GOP convention, when the House and Senate elections break for TEA party types they can make life hell for whomever’s Big Government ass is warming the chair in the Oval Office.
Have you read Perry’s proposals on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid motionview? Seems to me they reform all of these things, so hardly amount to a status quo ante, which is the clear implication of Gingrich’s statement.
So, like I said, disingenuous at best.
What I like about the conversation is it has drawn an establishment/conservative line that Romney will have a hard time crossing, being as he’s long denounced a flat tax as being for the rich.
The more republicans discuss details of a flat tax replacement of the current tax code, as opposed to just whether there should be a replacement, the more irrelevant Romney becomes.
– Prediction: “No real changes to the tax system will be forthcoming. No one has enough political courage to take a shot at real reform for fear their actions will be the lynch pin that finally collapses the entire mess.” – W.Buckley. 1971
– The more things change….
Agreed, Lee. Romney has long been against the flat tax. There are many reasons I prefer not to vote for Mittens, the main one being that he is a lying liar who lies for political expediency. See his 999 Points of Light Tax Double Axel with a Half Twist Plan for the Future, subsection 666(c).
sdferr, it seems, since the Perry quote you posted said “allow young Americans to contribute a portion of their earnings to an account with their names on it, that a portion would remain in the current system. In other words, Perry will tinker with the SS system, but there will still be some sort of payroll tax. The “no change in payroll tax” is not inaccurate if you are looking at the thing still existing, as opposed to the specific amount deducted.
My two cents…
The same people who…tell us that it is really only Romney or Perry who are “serious” candidates (while oftentimes in the same breath working to dismiss Perry) are active once again…
I do admire the beautiful simplicity of an argument that boils down to, “If you rubes would just shut up, we’d have an awesome slate of candidates like Romney. But no, you had to stomp around with your Gadsden flags and your federal deficit bar graphs, and scare up a bunch of barbarian cartoons to stand for election. And as a result, you’re going to be stuck with Romney.”
Heads-I-win, tails-you-lose doesn’t come any clearer than that.
Count Chocula is the Club for Growth president?
Lee, I only suggest we compare what Newt has to say in favor of his own proposal to see what is elided in his account of Perry’s position.
In addition to which, we can’t help but to see that Perry’s aim, overall, is to begin to get ahold of the tsunami of debt the country is soon to be engulfed in. Hence, Perry addresses the questions of entitlement reform on their own terms, which, it seems to me, will necessarily entail changes of the sort Gingrich is also touting. But Gingrich’s account of Perry’s plan chooses to stress what? It looks like “status quo ante” to me.
mittens gets endorsed
Link
If Megan McCain endorses him, that’s all I need to know. She’s a shining light of wisdom, after all.
Meghan then went on to say “But ultimately, I’m little more than a flesh-based Tit-Delivery System. Why you’d pay any attention to these random sounds (the auditory equivalent of so many egret-scratchings) that come out of my eating-hole, I can’t imagine! Which is hardly surprising, when you think about it.”
sdferr, I only hesitate with your characterization of Gingrich being “disingenuous at best” because I’m ignorant of the specific distinctions he draws. It could just be the difference between a definite timeline as opposed to a general direction, I don’t know.
Is why my comment was only worth two cents…
“….and knows the most about the economy and can hopefully do something to fix our recession…”
“…or something…….mmmmm….plus he’s a tit man, which is totally awesome!!!”
I think he’s the most qualified and I’m sick of personalities
The utter lack of any shred of self-awareness is mind-boggling.
-> #30 She’s sending him a message that if she puts out he better call her the next day……
Even if Diana Ross ends up singing Mittens’ theme song at the GOP convention
Gladys Knight. She’s a recent LDS convert.
Sorry, di, I couldn’t think of a song Gladys sings that fit as well as “It’s My Turn”.
But I’d rather eat her chicken and waffles than hear her sing. Mmmmmm, chicken and waffles… gggahhrhahhrhrhrhrr
“He’s fleeing (fleeing) / From that Midnight Cain from Georgia…”
OT, but this is a good read:
I’ve looked at it a little more sdferr and I’ll give you disingenuous on Newt. There is no reason he couldn’t have said Eventually replace payroll tax with personal accounts for the Perry plan as he did for his own. And I definitely appreciate Perry’s focus on spending, entitlements, and debt. He’s still not my favorite of the conservatives but I was really down on him before this plan. I am going to try to give him a clean second look.
It isn’t my aim to boost the guy motionview, nor really, to derogate Newt. I don’t fully comprehend any of these plans as yet, even Cain’s which I’ve had more time to look at. But giving each of them a fair shake from their own point of view is in our interest I think, and if that means pointing out where they short-shrift one another (and especially so with Newt, who has stood on the debate stage attempting to separate himself from the others by asking for civility), it seems to me we owe it to ourselves to do that.
Speaking of Fascism, American style, I just heard the Goebbels like Lani Davis declare on Hannity’s radio program that Obama can beat Romney on character.
The important part is that we have a handful of grownups discussing the crisis confronting us. Yes, they take a few cheap shots at one another, and no, they don’t address the currency issues that drive JHo to drink, but at least we’re making progress.
Which isn’t to say that the Ruling Class won’t continue to argue that there’s no crisis to worry about, and that this is just a bunch of scaremongering from the Tea Party crowd. Of course they will!
How does Perry’s plan capture earnings from the underground economy the way a sales tax would?
Excellent.
/Mr. Burns
scoamf
Link
Has Frankenberry weighed in on this yet?
Obama: I will purchase you voters (and aren’t I clever, I will do it with your own money!), because you should be bought and sold, like the slaves you are.
sdferr, why do you want uneducated children, and mass rapes committed in the light of buildings burning out of control?
It’s ‘cuz you’re a Visigoth, that’s why…
How does Perry’s plan capture earnings from the underground economy the way a sales tax would?
Under-the-table labor does not show up as income tax revenues; under-the-table trade does not show up on sales tax revenues. If I grind out and fill the osmotic blistering in your hull, and you give me your spare mainsail in return, Washington need not be told about any of it.
There is no system that can’t be gamed, but something that’s simple and fair and transparent is likely to have a much higher compliance rate than the Great Old One that is our current tax code.
Gee, maybe our side is finally learning. Perry deals with reported looking for a gotcha question…
Deals with a reporter I mean.
jen the rube has been busy today smearing ricky as a birther
I could be misinterpreting this, but doesn’t Perry’s plan call for an end to baseline budgeting? That’s the biggest future impact IMHO.
I’d prefer my miserable fate to be consigned more to the Ostro sort than the Visi, leaning closer to Hellas than to Iberia.
I’d prefer my miserable fate to be consigned more to the Ostro sort than the Visi,
Yeah, but you can’t trust them Greeks. First they bribe you with Northern Italy, and then while you’re busy building your New World Order, they steal North Africa. Next thing you know, it’s scorched earth and plague and the future belongs to the freakin’ Lombards!
It does, Zamoose. I suspect if he wins, he plans on selecting Ryan as a running mate for precisely this reason.
I don’t understand this “optional” flat tax concept and I’m running out of patience with Perry – I don’t think the man is electable – I really wanted to believe, Tink – I clapped my hands and everything
but I’m just not feeling it
oh my lone star despair
‘feets, are you still fretting for the ‘perfect candidate’?
Did you hear about Tebow’s ‘Miracle in Miami’ ?
Mr. Tebow’s God is an AWESOME God Mr. serr8d
Rick Perry’s maybe not so much
@46 of course any system can be gamed. But with a sales tax you at least capture some of the off books monies. For the fairness and the skin in the game.
The optional thing is open to claims that someone, either the flat-taxed or the long-form filing, is being chiseled. And the observation that the only way to find out is actually to run the numbers in the long form is telling. So I too don’t see the virtue in the option: seems simpler (and more virtuous therefore) to lay out a flat tax for all.
By which I believe you mean that people currently exempt from income taxes would pay at the cash register instead.
Of course, a true flat tax would reduce the percentage of people not paying income taxes.
@60 no i meant what i said. Those in the underground economy, drug dealers, prostitutes and pimps, some gambling operations, stolen car rings, do not pay income tax on their earnings. But they do make purchases at walmart, kroger and target.
OT: I had one of the best sandwiches ever today. Ham, pineapple, peanut butter, bacon, and BBQ sauce on thick toasted Italian bread slices. Cup of homemade lemon garlic chicken noodle soup on the side.
Just an idle speculation, but I wonder if there isn’t a positive aspect to every country keeping a marginal underground economy, to the extent that such things are nearer to genuinely self-organizing market systems than any government regulated faux market economy, and therefore as such, are both keepers of the flame of voluntary human exchange and simultaneously ready-to-hand objects of study for the experimentally minded economist. But just speculating, as I said.
would it not be nice if to fund the fed. gov’t taxes on imports and exports were the only source.
So bring back mercantilism newrouter?
@63 That would be fine by me. I know more than a few people who make a little on the side by restoring cars bought at auction and rolling over the money to fund the next one. Or the guy selling firewood or honey on the side of the road.
“So bring back mercantilism newrouter?”
a flat sales tax on imports and exports is “mercantilism”?
We might even say that a nation that has a proper respect for, or cherishes its little underground economies is a nation still in touch with the meaning of liberty BT. And the nation that goes out of its way to stamp out such things is a nation on the road to totalitarianism.
I guess it’s more complex than that newrouter, but if we only think on the adage that if you tax something, you’re likely to get less of it, then we can wonder whether the effects of taxation solely on trade — which is after all at the center of economic liberty — are the effects we would wish to see.
“mercantilism”
well give me your solutions to funding the fed. gov’t that doesn’t need an income tax?
#59 yes exactly and well put
I don’t get what’s so charming about the optionyness
I don’t like the option thing either. Why leave the current leviathan in place? The whole idea is to dismantle all the ways politicians can manipulate the complicated tax code to their own ends, and replace it with something simple to frustrate all that.
Having something new while keeping the current system too sounds dumb to me.
the problem with the dual system is that the proggs will attack the competition.
@68 I agree that those with initiative best personify the ideals of liberty, but i don’t see how financing the fed partially with a sales tax stamps out that initiative, it simply lessens the amount of money left on the table. Stamping out initiative is best illustrated by the occasionally swat team raid on the lemonade stand or the car dealers pushing legislation to halt home car sales.
I am old enough to remember the fruit peddlers pushing the cart through the neighborhood calling out “strawberries, fresh strawberries” and making an honest living. I wonder if they were required to have medallions back then in the mid 50’s.
“Stamping out initiative is best illustrated by the occasionally swat team raid on the lemonade stand or the car dealers pushing legislation to halt home car sales. ”
if you get rid of : epa, doe et al: they don’t have no stinking swat teams.
I’m not arguing against a sales tax BT, just commenting on what can become an over-eager desire of government to dig too deeply into the affairs of people conducting voluntary exchange. Better, I think, that government should be content to ignore some significant parcels of the people’s lives. And too, the overweening concern to “license” every past-time and endeavor people choose to undertake is likewise many steps too far in the direction of control. In a sense, it amounts to adding the authority of government to the weight of the guilds, or trade unions, or “professional” associations, attempting to seize control of commerce and occupation for their own selfish purposes, often limiting the growth of jobs in order to keep their guild’s wage-price high.
“just commenting on what can become an over-eager desire of government to dig too deeply into the affairs of people conducting voluntary exchange.”
dude you be funny. go for it anarchist.
if you get rid of : epa, doe et al: they don’t have no stinking swat teams.
Who won’t? Or doesn’t?
Getting rid of the EPA and all the rest won’t stop the local, county, or state cops from kicking over lemonade stands unless the pint-sized proprietors have $800 business permits. They all have their own SWAT team nowadays too, SWAT-style paramilitary police originated in local city level police in big cities.
But if you meant the EPA, DOE, and Dept. of Ed. don’t have SWAT teams… yeah, all the alphabets have their own SWAT teams now too. Even the Department of Education has a crack squad of dedicated commandos ready to blow your front door at a moments notice, just in case you happen to be a drug-slinging terrorist student-loan dodger.
Sex Pistols – Anarchy In The UK 1976
“Getting rid of the EPA and all the rest won’t stop the local, county, or state cops from kicking over lemonade stands ”
says who with nra backed fire power and votes?
Seems like we are talking about various segments of the larger picture. A sales tax simply captures monies that come from sources not subject to income tax. I would have no problem with a 7% sales tax and a 7% income tax even though those paying income tax are logically paying twice their share, but at least now those with off books income are paying to play.
I am sure it has been discussed in other threads but i don’t agree that a corporation is a person, nor do i believe that a union trade organization or any other type of K street company should have all the rights of personhood, which includes the money is speech ruling from the courts. The key to renewing America is making sure government has nothing to sell and the buyers can’t pool their money to gain greater influence. Regulatory intrusions at a local, state and federal level are a different subjects altogether and can be held at bay by drying up funding sources.
I am old enough to remember the fruit peddlers pushing the cart through the neighborhood calling out “strawberries, fresh strawberries” and making an honest living.
Public health threat.
Berry prep doesn’t hold up to food-handling regulation stadards. You need a $3000 commercial regulation-grade dishwasher if you want to re-use the containers you use to sort the berries.
Someone might get food poisoning you grubby, rogue, unlicensed non-professional-food-handling person.
I started out not liking the voluntary part either, but it really takes the “raise taxes on the poor” trope off the table. If their taxes would go up, they can keep the old system and no change.
And Warren Buffet is free to pay more than his secretary, if his conscience so dictates.
The dual tax system is still hard to square with Perry’s altogether appropriately dismissive rhetoric on the system as it stands. We have only to read his paper today:
“America’s tax code is broken.”
“. . .on-site investigation of professional preparers found evidence that the professionals did not always know what they were doing either”
“Innocent taxpayers are being held hostage by a monstrous system of taxation that only grows worse with each passing year.”
Then only reasonable response to such stuff is: get rid of it then. If it’s monstrous, why on earth would you keep any part of it?
@82 I think Enrico got his strawberries at the farmers market and if memory serves they were delicious. I don’t recall any bad side effects. I think he sold in season locally grown produce, i don’t remember him out during the winter, but i was only 6 at the time so i might not have it right.
I started out not liking the voluntary part either, but it really takes the “raise taxes on the poor” trope off the table. If their taxes would go up, they can keep the old system and no change.
Yeah, when I first saw it it struck me oddly, but I think it’s the only way to do it. The only way you can get real tax reform is with tax reductions.
Because if a republican raises taxes on anyone at all whatsoever, everyone in this country to the right of David Frum will scatter in confusion toward all directions as if the tower of Babel had fallen on them and no one will ever speak of any of this business again.
Democrats raise taxes. Any republican tax activity whatsoever pretty much has to lower them or Shit. Blows. Up. One of the few things republicans have any credibility at all on is being the anti-tax party.
And keeping the old system at first rather blatantly means it’s nothing but a giant tax cut to all rates over 20%.
That’s dicey. Bold. I think there’s supposed to be something in there to limit the budget to 18% of GDP. It will be required that we actually do it, if we do tax cuts like this.
The benefit of it is, if anyone doesn’t like it, anything at all about it? Fine. If you like your tax code, you can keep your 72,000 page tax code.
Or you can have a flat tax.
You know it’s a transitory step right? Like the trojan health care? Think about it.
If you’re paying more than 20%, now you’re paying 20%. If you’re paying less than 20%, than whatever, have it your way. Congress can now futz with the 72,000 page tax code all they like, it only effects people when it allows them to get under 20%. And since this plan will reduce revenue, that old system is gonna get tossed aside in a heap. Congress critters will be looking for MORE revenue, not less. Any tinkering will be directed to the new side. The old one basically gets cut up and fades away.
Completely off topic, but what the hell:
The El Rey del Mudo Olvidados Chateaux D might just be the finest cigar evah!
El Rey del Mundo
fucking ice is messing with the whisky again
If Issue 2 goes down in Ohio, it’s game over. Romney is dead to me because of this. Perry is the one the media fears the absolute most, including FOX.
Looking for Perry to come to Ohio and hammer Issue 2 home.
And that’s as funny as I can be.
Mr. Governor Perry needs a lot of money for to live his olympic dream.
Wall Street Romney’s election will represent a triumph of the Failure Management school of American politics.
We all managed to go a good many years without yammering about the finer points of highly theoretical tax plans. Why?
I need some 5-hr energy thingies or this day is over before it started.
I had to google Mr. al
he would be our second hyper-entitled feckless coward nominee in a row
but they say it takes three to make a pattern
link
Amen happy. And I was Romney in ’08. But to not recognize what the unions are accomplishing in Ohio after SB 5 gave us a chance to turn our economy around, is about as dumb politically as has been seen ’round these parts. Almost makes me think Mitt’s going to come out with an action figure soon.
I think Perry will say the things to Obama’s face that McCain was too opaque and afraid to say. I think Perry feels no guilt about how he treats people black, brown or white, so he will give Obama the equal treatment that any dumbass deserves, regardless of skin tone.
It’s all I’m asking happy. For someone to turn to Obama and say, “You’ve campaigned and golfed for the last 4 years. Your time is up.”
By the time of the Georgia primary in 2008 I was reduced to choosing between a partially dewrapped pound of green hamburger and a bunch of fuzzy carrots — not that the selection that year was ever very appetizing. I ended up voting for Romney.
That was my lifetime quota.
Would it be appropriate of Gov. Perry (or any politician, for that matter) to acknowledge that the nice round fingers-and-toes 20% is a first approximation to fixing a rate figure for a flat-tax, one which can be altered marginally, either upward or downward after test, when the receipts to the Treasury are better known in practice, coming in either more than expected or less? And if that were the case, that is, recognizing publicly that the vast sum of events which constitute the receipts to the Treasury cannot be accurately predicted in advance save to a near approximation, would such an acknowledgment therefore jeopardize the argument against Mr. Cain’s plan along those lines, i.e. that once introduced, Cain’s national tax portion can too easily be ratcheted upward (no-one seems to mention downward!) by politicians?