L.A. Times Column: A tax reform fairy tale (GOP Proposals are entertaining but imaginary)

Los Angeles Times ^ | 11/01/2011 | Doyle McManus

[SeekAndFind]

Tax reform proposals are the political equivalent of science fiction: entertaining but imaginary. No tax proposal ever passes through Congress unscathed. There are too many interests that believe their survival depends on tax preferences — hence the tax code's immutable tendency to accumulate complexities as a ship collects barnacles.

Still, presidential candidates' tax proposals are useful windows into their philosophies. Should income taxes on the wealthy go up or down? Should income from investments be taxed at a different rate than income from labor? And should "tax reform," a goal everyone embraces, be used as a tool to shrink the federal government or to increase revenues?

This year's GOP presidential candidates have offered three markedly different approaches to the issue — a reflection, in effect, of three distinct temperaments. One, from Mitt Romney, is cautious and incremental. A second, from Herman Cain, is radical and impulsive. A third, from Rick Perry, is in-between: a plan that proclaims itself radical but turns out, on closer inspection, to be a mix of radical rhetoric and pragmatic calculation.

SNIP

The most eye-catching comes from Herman Cain, the former pizza magnate, who has trumpeted a "9-9-9" plan: a 9% income tax, a 9% corporate tax and a 9% national sales tax. When voters noticed that the burden would fall disproportionately on low-income families, Cain cheerfully offered to exempt the poor from income tax — and made no real attempt to calculate the impact of that change on the federal budget, as if the numbers didn't really matter.

[MNJohnnie]

We do not live in ordinary times.

More Americans then ever are now aware that we cannot close our eyes and pretend we do not face a fundamental Government fiscal crisis/

So the good little Progressivebot Junk media authors like this can put their hands over their ears and scream “no-no-no” all they want that does not magically change their opinions to facts.

[driftless2]

Liberals/Progressives had thought they had relegated tax reform i.e. cuts to the dustbin of history. That's before Reagan came along. Before Reagan and conservative talk radio i.e. Rush Limbaugh and company, libs had the control of the ideological battle all to themselves. Big government, good, small government, bad, very bad. Why you needed big government to shelter you through life. Yes, Americans, who live in the richest country in the world and came from people who battled through the wilderness to escape big government in Europe were/are naught but helpless fools threatened by (boo,hiss) the free-enterprise system... the same system that made the lives of average Americans the envy of the world.

Statists like this scribbler McManus, will never accept free-enterprise principles. Because they're statists. And clowns like McManus thrive as tools of the Big Statists.

[NoLibZone]

There shall NEVER be a change from a political tax system.

Ever.