Mike Huckabee is making an effort to take advantage of Giuliani and McCain’s absence from the coming Iowa straw poll. Having said in the past that a poor showing in the poll would lead him to drop out of the race, he’s now framing expectations:
We’ve got enough money to go through the straw poll, to get through that next major milestone for us,” he said Wednesday in a conference call with reporters. “We’ve never said we have to win the straw poll in order to be considered credible. We’ve got to do well.”
The former Arkansas governor said he’ll be satisfied with a third-place finish if there isn’t a large gap between the top three finishers.
Despite his oft-mentioned political gifts, he seems determined to marginalize himself by continually flogging the idea of a national sales tax:
Huckabee was touting his “national consumption tax” or “fair tax” to replace the current complex federal tax code.
“For far too long,” he noted, “the government’s been spending your money as if it was a credit card with no limit. And it has been penalizing your productivity through its tax code.”
According to Huckabee, his fair tax would allow what a person buys determine how much he’d pay in taxes.
“If you don’t buy it,” he stated emphatically, “you shouldn’t have to pay taxes on it.”
Re-writing the tax code around a national sales tax would be hugely unfair to America’s working families, forcing them to bear the burden of taxation and letting the rich off easy. That’s why nobody but cranks pushes the idea. It’s difficult to understand why someone with as much potential as Huckabee is so intent on reducing himself to crank status.
3 Responses to “Huckabee’s Big Flat Push”
This is not plain National sales tax which is in fact regressive but rather a progressive national sales tax. Just as an income tax alone is regressive it can be made (by tiering the tax system) into a progressive tax system. To do this the FairTax replaces all income, payroll, capital gains, estate, corporate, and gift taxes and replaces them with a National sales tax only on NEW goods and supplies an in advance tax refund (prebate) for every LEGAL family to untax every family up to the poverty level of spending. If this were a straight national sales tax I would be against it also but it is not so I suggest you look into it a little more.
While many who are invested in the current income tax system seek to demagog the well-researched FairTax plan (*), its acceptance in the professional / academic community continues to grow (**). Failure to enact the FairTax – choosing instead to try to “flatten” a NON-FLATTENABLE income tax system – will result in an IRREVOCABLE economic meltdown. (*** Impossible, you say?)
Here is why the FairTax MUST replace the income tax. It’s:
• SIMPLE, easy to understand
• EFFICIENT, inexpensive to comply with and doesn’t cause less-than-optimal business decisions for tax minimization purposes
• FAIR, loophole free and everyone pays their share
• LOW TAX RATE, achieved by broad base with no exclusions
• PREDICTABLE, doesn’t change, so financial planning is possible
• UNINTRUSIVE, doesn’t intrude into our personal affairs or limit our liberty
• VISIBLE, not hidden from the public in tax-inflated prices or otherwise
• PRODUCTIVE, rewards, rather than penalizes, work and productivity
Its benefits are as follows:
FOR INDIVIDUALS:
• No more tax on income – make as much as you wish
• You receive your full paycheck – no more deductions
• You pay the tax when you buy “at retail” – not “used”
• No more double taxation (e.g. like on current Capital Gains)
• Reduction of “pre-FairTaxed” retail prices by 20%-30%
• Adding back 29.9% FairTax maintains current price levels
• FairTax would constitute 23% portion of new prices
• Every household receives a monthly check, or “pre-bate”
• “Prebate” is “advance payback” for monthly consumption to poverty level
• FairTax’s “prebate” ensures progressivity, poverty protection
• Finally, citizens are knowledgeable of what their tax IS
• Elimination of “parasitic” Income Tax industry
• NO MORE IRS. NO MORE FILING OF TAX RETURNS by individuals
• Those possessing illicit forms of income will ALSO pay the FairTax
• Households have more disposable income to purchase goods
• Savings is bolstered with reduction of interest rates
FOR BUSINESSES:
• Corporate income and payroll taxes revoked under FairTax
• Business compensated for collecting tax at “cash register”
• No more tax-related lawyers, lobbyists on company payrolls
• No more embedded (hidden) income/payroll taxes in prices
• Reduced costs. Competition – not tax policy – drives prices
• Off-shore “tax haven” headquarters can now return to U.S
• No more “favors” from politicians at expense of taxpayers
• Resources go to R&D and study of competition – not taxes
• Marketplace distortions eliminated for fair competition
• US exports increase their share of foreign markets
FOR THE COUNTRY:
• 7% – 13% economic growth projected in the first year of the FairTax
• Jobs return to the U.S.
• Foreign corporations “set up shop” in the U.S.
• Tax system trends are corrected to “enlarge the pie”
• Larger economic “pie,” means thinner tax rate “slices”
• Initial 23% portion of price is pressured downward as “pie”
increases
• No more “closed door” tax deals by politicians and business
• FairTax sets new global standard. Other countries will follow
(*) http://snipurl.com/taxpanelrebutted (.pdf)
(**) http://snipurl.com/econsopenletter (Lists every tax that FairTax will eliminate, together with the power they represent to pol’s and lobbyists.)
(***) Listen to an interview where Prof. Kotlikoff elaborates: http://snipurl.com/meltdowninprogress
The time for sitting around, pontificating, is over. We have NO CHOICE but to ACT: http://snipr.com/scrapthecode
Something to say?
I agree Paul. The thing is, Iowa conservatives love the “fair tax.” At the candidate forum I went to sponsored by the Iowans for Tax Relief and Iowa Christian Alliance, nearly every candidate endorsed it (albeit they were mostly lower-tiered). For good or ill, this position will help him with Iowa Republicans–he hopes.
Left by Ben Weyl
July 12, 2007 at 12:48pm