MIRROR, MIRROR, ON THE WALL, WHO’S THE BIGGEST PANDERER OF ALL?….Mike Huckabee currently has the loopiest tax proposal on the table, a 30% national sales tax that he supports because he read a book about it once and thought it sounded kinda neat. It’s unworkable, hugely regressive, wouldn’t raise half the money Huckabee thinks it would, and would create an underground economy so massive it would make the old Soviet Union look efficient.
But it would cut taxes on the rich, which means it’s perfect for the modern Republican Party. So how do you top it? Rudy Giuliani, never a man to let himself be upstaged in a panderfest, provided his answer yesterday (numbers added to original Reuters dispatch for easy reference):
Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani has proposed what he called a multitrillion-dollar tax cut that would (1) lower the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent….(2) reduce the capital gains tax from 15 percent to 10 percent….(3) preserve the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts enacted by President George W. Bush….(4) eliminate the estate tax….(5) give taxpayers the option of choosing a simplified tax form with three tax brackets with a maximum bracket of 30 percent….(6) index the alternative minimum tax to inflation and eventually repeal it.
Take that, Huckabee! You say your plan is big? Well, according to an expert that Townhall blogger Matt Lewis talked to, “This plan would be huge.” How huge? “It would be 4% of GDP. By comparison, GWB tax cut was 1.3% of GDP. Reagan’s was 1.9% of GDP.”
Twice the size of Reagan’s! Three times the size of Bush’s! And deficits? No worries. These babies will pay for themselves!
Oh, and just in case you haven’t figured this out yet, all six of Giuliani’s tax cuts are aimed at people who already have lots and lots of money. But you knew that, right?
