McCain Moving to Flat Tax Model?
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McCain Moving to Flat Tax Model?
| Thu, 10-23-2008 - 12:27pm |
This morning's "Morning Edition" featured an interview with Steve Forbes.
| Thu, 10-23-2008 - 12:27pm |
This morning's "Morning Edition" featured an interview with Steve Forbes.
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I was on board with Steve Forbes plan when he ran (he got kicked out of the primaries before he got to our state - stupid June primaries).
If he goes through with a flat tax rate across the board it could be a very good thing.
I would be concerned that people would see this as a last ditch effort to save his campaign and not have a lot of faith that he will follow through since he changed his tune mid process.
I would be concerned that people would see this as a last ditch effort to save his campaign and not have a lot of faith that he will follow through since he changed his tune mid process.
Or we could be optimistic and think "hey, the economy is tanking, he needed a new strategy to get us out of this hole."
I think a lot of people will give him the benefit of the doubt.
*shrugs*
Here's a link to Forbe's article, How Capitalism Will Save Us.
http://www.forbes.com/home/forbes/2008/1110/018.html
Here's just a small part of the article. This is the end of the article where he talks about taxes in our current economy.
"Cutting tax rates is also a necessity. Political cultures have a hard time understanding that taxes don't just raise revenue, they are also a price and a burden. The tax you pay on income is the price you pay for working, just as the tax on capital gains is the price you pay for taking risks that work out and the tax on profits is the price you pay for success. If you make it more worthwhile for people to work productively and take risks, they will do so. Rebates are useless--they don't change incentives the way lower tax rates do. Ideally, we should enact a simple flat tax. Twenty-five countries have adopted some form of a flat tax, all successfully.
Economic growth will help prevent another financial time bomb--credit default swaps, a form of debt insurance--from exploding. The nominal amount peaked at $62 trillion and is now down to $55 trillion. Renewed prosperity will enable big companies to service their debts, thus nullifying the need to ever collect on the insurance. Most of these swaps will expire within five years.
Sensible, not punitive, regulations in the financial sector are needed, such as standardization of new financial products so that there is more transparency.
Fannie and Freddie should be broken up into a number of new, recapitalized companies that have no ties to Uncle Sam.
If we have the kind of policies that marked the 1980s and not the kind that marked the 1930s and 1970s, we will be in for a dazzling era of innovation and economic advances. Free-market capitalism will save us--if we let it."
One thing that we did not have then that we do now is a major war draining out funds.
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