Perry to Propose a Flat Tax
Texas Gov. Rick Perry says he's going to go all Steve Forbes, circa 1996, and propose a flat tax.
Perry to Propose a Flat Tax
Thomas Fitzgerald, Inquirer Politics Writer
LAS VEGAS – Texas Gov. Rick Perry said he would propose a federal flat tax next week as part of a fiscal plan, a move to try to elevate him above the rest of the Republican presidential field on an issue popular with the party’s base.
Perry told an audience of Republican activists from western states that he wanted to “scrap the 3 million words of the current tax code and start with something simple: a flat tax. I want to make the tax code so simple that even [Treasury Secretary] Timothy Geithner can file his taxes on time.”
He also said his plan would advocate “serious” spending cuts and pledged to “barnstorm” the nation as president to ensure passage of a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution.
The move comes after pizza tycoon Herman Cain surged to the first tier of contenders in the race with his "9-9-9" tax proposal, which woudl replace the existing system with a 9 percent wage tax, a 9 percent corporate tax, and a 9 percent national sales tax.
In remarks to the Western Republican Leadership Conference here, Perry also picked up where he left off in Tuesday night’s debate, throwing elbows at Mitt Romney, though he did not mention his rival’s name. Perry said he was not the establishment’s candidate, in contrast to He Who Shall Not Be Named.
“The American people are not going to trim around the edges when it comes to 2012: They are going to turn Washington inside out,” Perry said. “Let me share with you one thing. I am not the candidate of the establishment. You won’t hear a lot of shape-shifting nuance from me. I am going to give the American people a huge big old helping of unbridled truth — that we can’t continue to spend what we are spending, that we can’t avoid entitlement reform because we are afraid of the third rail of politics.”
Though he has fallen in the polls after a fast start as a conservative champion for the anti-Romney crowd, Perry said that pundits and the GOP establishment are writing him off too early. “Primary and caucus voters did not get the memo,” he said.
Man, talk about the scramble to the bottom. Hey Rick, when this doesn't work in a day or two and you're still falling like Texas' school test scores, why not float a mandatory health insurance plan? That would set you apart from guys like Romney....oops, never mind.— CiceroSpuriousDeodatus- Flat tax is the way to go unfortunately we've screwed up the US revenue Department so badly that it would take years to to get a simplistic flat tax working. Plus goodbye IRS workers and CPA's. I'd love to see it happen but nobody has the onions to push it through.— Gray Areas
- GOP really needs to get a viable candidate out there. My choices: Pizza guy who gets his tax idea from Simcity. Another Texas governor whose job creation is more Walmart greeters. A little mad scientist who's ideas are either really good or batsh!t crazy. Or a Morman from the north who is desperately trying to point out the difference from his healthcare and Obama's. Where's the guy who represents me?— Vote for Dickie
Flat Tax is the only sensible way to go.— Ben Fan- Unfortunate that the field is weak. It raises the likelihood for 4 more years of Obama..........— Northcountry
- Weak? Steven Hawking can beat this rabble in arm-wrestling.— CiceroSpuriousDeodatus
Comment removed.- Hey Rick we still don't know the details of this alleged tax plan. This was after you promised to have a economic plan (which includes a tax plan) this week and now all these promises. That's what we have now with Obummer. Anyone who sends money to Rick Perry is wasting good money after a candidate who is going down in flames. We need someone who can take it to Obummer, perhaps Bachmann maybe Bachmann/Cain or Bachmann/Romney is the ticket. Cain blew it when he "mis-spoke" about letting all the terrorist out of "Gitmo" in exchange for one American soldier. That's a disqualifying statement where Cain can never lead the top of the ticket.— Speak-truth-2-power
- Comment removed.
- This genius is simply pulling from the same old batch of ideas that the right has floated for years. I'd still like to know how it was possible under his more than decade of rule that the state of Texas ran up a $6 Billion dollar deficit. So much for "fiscal responsibility." And just what we need, more minimum wage jobs. If I would have known that the Vegas debate was going to be a clown show, I would have made popcorn.— taxmanndumbeth
You can reach Tom Fitzgerald at 215-854-2718 or tfitzgerald@phillynews.com.
Reach Thomas at tfitzgerald@phillynews.com.
