Some exciting developments in the Republican presidential race are being ignored by the media. We believe Americans will be excited when they understand the revolutionary nature of these candidate's proposals.
It all started with Herman Cain's 9-9-9 plan. As Newt Gingrich said this week, "Herman should be congratulated for starting an important discussion." And he should.
But our hope comes from other excellent proposals by GOP candidates that are being neglected in the news media. Most of the plans would help, but three of the plans from different candidates if adopted together would supercharge the economy and put the private sector back to work.
First we love Governor Rick Perry's Flat tax proposal. His plan is a 17% flat rate on all income above $36,000. Below $36,000 all taxpayers would pay zero. The Perry plan will also eliminate taxes on personal savings and capital gains. Investments would be encouraged by this plan. It is fair and will take politics out of tax policy.
Next Congressman Ron Paul's balanced budget should be adopted by every campaign. It is brilliant. He has laid out just how we can balance the budget. He will eliminate agencies that provide no real value to Americans only special interests, end foreign aid, repeal reams of regulations, cut military spending by brings troops home to America, reduce the federal workforce, and freeze mandatory spending. Paul's cuts would amount to $1 trillion in immediate savings. The Federal budget would be completely balanced in three years.
Finally, Michele Bachmann has proposed cutting the cost of Washington's regulatory burden on the economy by trillions of dollars. A misunderstanding of the Reagan era is the belief that he only focused on tax cuts. This is simply untrue. Maybe of even greater importance was the thousands of pages of regulations repealed by the Reagan Administration. It is in the regulatory policy where you see the big difference between George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan. Under Bush regulations exploded and business became more difficult because of this burden. Bachmann's ideas deserve to be implemented.
America's system of taxation is broken. In 1986, Ronald Reagan brokered an important revision of the tax code which dramatically lowered rates and launched a period of unprecedented growth and prosperity. The key to Reagan's success was lowering rates and eliminating politically motivated tax incentives and kickbacks that undermine fairness.
Sadly, during the years of prosperity that followed the Reagan reforms, the US Congress under both Republican and Democratic leadership used the good times to once again load the tax code full of crony capitalism, kickbacks to favored groups. Now the system is collapsing under the weight of this corruption.
Obama's answer is raising rates even higher so he can give out even more favors to his chosen groups. This solution will only make the problems with the tax code even worse. Billionaires like Warren Buffett can always game the system, while the middle class gets fleeced. Buffets hypocrisy in supporting Obama's plans is astounding while the firm he runs Berkshire Hathaway is legendary for its ability to avoid taxes and currently owes over a billion dollar is back taxes.
Perry's plan would fix all this and lower rates even further than Reagan did. Maybe this is the elixir that can get his campaign back on track. Steve Forbes thinks so. He told the Wall Street Journal this week, "I'm very, very excited by it. What Perry is proposing is a radical simplification of the income tax code....It's finally coming to pass."
Join the conversation as a VIP Member