Posted on 02/08/2016 4:30:07 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Steve Forbes ran for president twice -- in 1996 and 2000 -- spending a reported $69 million of his own money in failed bids to win the Republican nomination. His campaigns mostly focused on establishing a flat income tax and other similar economic reforms.
The multi-millionaire chairman and editor-in-chief of Forbes Media isn't running for president this time around, but he does have a new book out this week (Reviving America), promoting three big reforms he believes America should adopt: repeal and replace Obamacare with something akin to a free-market health-care system; scrapping the Federal income tax code in favor of a flat tax; and overhauling the Federal Reserve, including re-linking the U.S. dollar with the price of gold.
We sat down with Forbes, 68, for a brief chat during a visit to TheStreet offices in New York. Here's what he had to say about Donald Trump, what other Republican candidates need to do, and who he's considering supporting for president. This interview has been condensed for clarity and length.
Must Read: Steve Forbes' Plan to Revive America: Drop Obamacare, Flatten Tax Code
TheStreet: Donald Trump has made a huge splash in this election.
Steve Forbes: He's tapped into -- in a way I don't think he anticipated, nor did anyone else -- into the depth of the anger, frustration, contempt of Americans for the political class.
As you know, most Americans still think we're in a recession. Most Americans have seen their real wages decline in the last six years. They sense -- they don't have to be told it -- that this is the worst recovery from a recession in American history.
Then you compound that with the feeling that this current administration does not have its heart in fighting Islamic terrorism...that's a lethal combination.
The question becomes which candidate or candidates are going to be able to tap into it in a positive way, like Reagan did in the late '70s and early '80s.
TST: It sounds like you're implying that he's tapped into something very cleverly, but his message isn't positive or the right Republican or conservative message.
SF: It's been a mixed message. His tax plan is pretty good. It's not a flat tax, which I advocate, and several other candidates have gotten on board. Certainly what he's proposed is better than what we have today. On trade, I am a free trader. I don't want tariffs -- to me, tariffs are taxes.
And on immigration, I think his proposals are a non-starter, legally and morally. But what is out there is that people do want far more effective methods in dealing with Islamic terrorism.
So, what he has sensed in a way the others haven't is what the mood of a lot of people is. Every time he makes a statement, it causes a "hoo-ha."
What candidates should be doing is not complaining about trump. They can denounce his proposals, but instead of whining about it -- that he sucks the oxygen out of the room -- if you want to be heard, have something to say.
If you ask voters, what is Jeb Bush's theme? Blank. What are the others' themes? Well, they have some good ideas, but they haven't connected the dots -- the way that Reagan did in '80, the way that Kennedy did in '60. These people who make their living in politics haven't stepped up to the plate and acted like entrepreneurs -- if I have a message, how do I get it out there? If the electorate has changed, how do I do it?
TST: Do you think he has a chance of winning the Republican nomination?
SF: I'm humbled. I don't rule anything out now. Who would have thought Bernie sanders, looking at the other side would get 30%-to-40% of the vote -- everyone is focused on Republicans but look at this guy!
It shows people are dissatisfied, whether it's on the left or on the right.
TST: Is there someone you do support for president?
SF: No. I compare it to the dating game. I keep on looking at the candidates and finding good things in some and trying to piece it all together.
TST: Based on some of the policies you put forward in your new book, that you've been putting forward for a while, if I could just reach a little bit, it sounds like Rand Paul is a candidate that would be close to getting your support. Is he or any of the other candidates maybe a little bit in the lead in terms of your support?
SF: I don't agree with him on foreign policy. But I think both he and [Ted] Cruz, Cruz especially, is ahead of understanding the problems at the Fed. So, I like that. They both have flat tax proposals, but I wish they'd get rid of the VAT component. So, none are quite there, but some get pieces of it.
[Marco] Rubio for example is very good on foreign policy but his tax proposal is one of the worst ones out there.
I hear you - this really has to end.
Who does Cruz's 10% Tax plus a VAT help - well most of us will actually pay more tax. It helps the super-wealthy. Of course. They are Ted's paymaster.
Cruz will be more of the same “Government help” regulation:
You have done everyone on this forum a great service. Few knew or understood Ted’s VAT plan, but Forbes has pointed it out. I don’t know he intended to load dynamite under Cruz’s bridge to the future, but he just did.
“VAT” has been brought up multiple times on FR threads.
It’s open for discussion.
Where do you see a VAT in Cruz’s plan?
https://www.tedcruz.org/tax_plan/
Do you have any concerns about Trump’s tax plan?
I’ve added information and concerns about that to this thread too.
Well, private school tuition is not presently tax deductible but home-school expenses would be>? And having the IRS auditing home schoolers seems like an opportunity rife with abuse.
The real problem is that we are seeing is that Ted is nothing but a magna-cum-laude head-inside-the-Beltway I-can-write-a-supreme-court brief policy wonk once again telling the rest of us how to live on what we are assured are "conservative" principles. He says he wants to "rein in Washington" and eliminate the IRS but then proposes a host of micro-regulatatory acts that have the opposite effect.
That is because Rafael never ran anything. Harvard spit-and-polish and without the substance of a Yale man.
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/114/s306/text
114th CONGRESS
1st Session
S. 306
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
January 29, 2015
Mr. Lee (for himself, Mr. Cruz, and Mr. Crapo) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance
A BILL
To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to encourage the use of 529 plans and Coverdell education savings accounts, and for other purposes.
The table of contents for this Act is as follows:
Sec. 1. Short title.
Sec. 2. Table of contents.
Title I - Title I of the ESEA portability
Sec. 101. Title I portability.
Title II - Allowance of home school expenses as qualified education expenses
Sec. 201. Allowance of home school expenses as qualified education expenses for purposes of a Coverdell Education Savings Account.
Sec. 202. Elimination of Coverdell Education Savings Account contribution limitation.
Title III - 529 programs for elementary and secondary education expenses
Sec. 301. 529 programs for elementary and secondary education expenses.
In your Forbes article. You bolded it.
That might be a valid point, if by "hit pieces" you mean "any statement critical of my new hero Trump."
Why not hit the “Report Abuse” button and bring it to the attention of the moderators?
You see Cruz is guilty of what his kind call "silent misrepresentation" e.g. fraud. There isn't a lie in his voluminous posting on his website, which is about income tax reform. He just doesn't tell you about his national sales tax. It is a form of simple fraud.
The Book of Cruz
For the Lord has sent unto us a messiah from Havana by way of Calgary yeah unto the very gates of Austin.
We only have to believe and accept Cruz into our hearts and we will be saved and Cruz will heal our nation. Yea send him unto the very gates of the heathens in Washington. He will smite the liberals and smite the GOPes and yea even the RINOs, and yea they will feel his mighty power.
He will be seated on a mighty throne in Washington and the members of Congress and yea even the priests of the Supreme Court and the hoards of bureaucrats shall bow their knee unto to him. For he is the mighty Cruz and the Deliverer and Defender of the Constitution.
For the Lord has sent us a mighty naturalized citizen from Canada unto the United States to deliver us from our wicked ways. He shall show us the true way as none other. Woe unto those with New York values. For they are an abomination unto his eyes.
For unto him and his followers the Lord has shown the true way of conservatism. All others shall be cast into the lake of fire.
Yea only believe and the mighty and true Cruz will deliver us from abomination. /s
This fairy tale brought to you by Goldman Sachs.
We now return you to our regular programing.
Go Trump!
The postings are so annoying and obviously are quick cut and paste from a prepared catalogue.
I’m impressed by the professional manner and attention, perverted or not it, the entity, deserves an atta boy/girl.
Probably not important but I see that the entity is often referred to as “SHE”. Has this been independently verified or is it time to start focusing on that entities profile if for no other reason than to shine some light on their end game.
I’m sure the abuse button and other calls to Jim Robinson have been employed by many of us; why, so we as a put upon group can enjoy the give and take of regular freepers and not the production of professional trolls.
Just sayin ...........damn I would so like to win just once!
She just did us an enormous service in providing us a clear view of what Cruz is all about. Used to like the man, but with this I come to realize that he is just another smarmy, inside-the-beltway con artiste.
I know Forbes mentions it. I read the material I post
I gave you the link to Cruz's tax plan
Still no concerns on your end about Trump's tax plan?
More garbage from the GOPe.
______________________________________________________
Well I disagree with Forbes on immigration, however he is hardly GOPe. HE ran against both Dole and Bush II for being too liberal and the GOPe didn’t appreciate that.
“The United States’ gross domestic product in 1999 was $9.7 trillion, so if Trump’s tax had raised $5.7 trillion, that would have been 59 percent of GDP, said Chris Edwards of the libertarian Cato Institute.
Federal tax hikes typically are no more than 1 percent of GDP, Edwards said.
“The Bush 1990 hike and Clinton 1993 hike were less than 1 percent of GDP over 5 years - whereas Trump’s tax would have been 59 percent one time in one year,” Edwards said.
Same guy [Chris Edwards, Cato Institute]:
NRO:
Ted Cruz’s and Rand Paul’s Strange Embrace of the “VAT”
The senators are right to want tax reform - but hiding the cost of government is not reform.
Senators Ted Cruz and Rand Paul are strong advocates of limited government. They are gifted spokesmen for free markets, and they are heroes for taking on the GOP establishment on issues such as overspending and civil liberties.
That is why their embrace of the value-added tax (VAT) in their presidential campaigns is so baffling. VATs are the revenue engine of big-government welfare states, not a proper funding source for the small federal government that both senators favor for America.
Cruz and Paul propose to rip up the current tax code and replace it with individual income taxes at low, flat rates - Cruz at 10 percent and Paul at 14.5 percent. Their plans would repeal the estate tax and corporate income taxes, while reducing the overall tax load. So far, so good.
But then we come to the VAT, which the candidates hide behind innocuous names - “business flat tax” for Cruz and “business transfer tax: for Paul. Actually, Paul’s title is accurate, because these taxes would “transfer” trillions of dollars into government coffers unseen by most citizens.
The tab for taxes collected from businesses is ultimately passed through to individuals in the form of lower wages, reduced dividends, or higher prices. So for transparency, the best thing would be to scrap business taxes altogether, and collect the full tax load from individuals at a flat rate. That way, people could accurately perceive the full cost of government.
It is true that the VATs proposed by Cruz and Paul have modest rates - 16 and 14.5 percent, respectively. The problem is not the rates, but the tax bases. VATs have huge bases. That’s because - unlike income taxes - they do not allow businesses to deduct employee compensation when calculating the taxable amount. So both labor income and capital income are taxed at the business level under VATs.
The result would be that tax revenues from businesses under the Cruz and Paul VATs would be enormous. While the plans would abolish the corporate income tax (CIT), the new VATs would have corporate tax bases at least four times larger than the CIT. So every rate increase in the VAT that future politicians might push would raise vastly more than the same rate increase on current business income taxes.
I share Cruz and Paul’s passion for major tax reform, but we should not hide the huge cost of the government from the people. Federal spending currently costs 21 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. So a simple flat tax on individuals at a 21 percent rate would more accurately convey the cost of government to the public.
By dropping individual tax rates to 10 and 14.5 percent with big exemptions, Cruz and Paul would be creating a mirage of cheap government. Those low “prices” for government would raise the demand for it - people would clamor for more subsidies from Washington. Like Cruz and Paul, I want cheap government, but the way to actually get it is to slash spending.
The VAT issue comes down to where we want to tax labor income, which is a huge base. Because Cruz and Paul shift much of the collection to businesses, more of the tax burden gets hidden from citizens and voters. For the Cruz plan, the Tax Foundation estimates that 71 percent of total taxes in coming years would come from the hidden business VAT, while just 22 percent would come from the individual income tax. By contrast, if the individual income tax is not reformed, it will raise about 50 percent of total federal revenues in coming years.
Furthermore, Cruz and Paul would abolish the 15 percent federal payroll tax. Currently, that levy is partly hidden from workers in the tax’s “employer half.” But the solution to that transparency problem is to change the administration of the tax so that the full amount is visible on workers’ paystubs, which is where the burden already falls in reality.
If the government is going to take our money, it should mug us on the street in broad daylight, rather than sneak into our homes at night and burglarize us unnoticed. The VAT would encourage more burglary. Cruz and Paul want smaller government, but down the road, other politicians looking to shore up entitlement programs will say, “They could be financed with just a small tax increase on businesses.” But each “small” increase in the VAT rate would transfer huge amounts of additional cash from the private economy to the government.
Cruz and Paul deserve credit for thinking big on tax reform, but they should remember the H. L. Mencken line, “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” If the common people want government spending, then the tax system ought to make them feel the full cost “good and hard.”
By Chris Edwards - editor of DownsizingGovernment.org at the Cato Institute.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/426469/ted-cruz-rand-paul-vat
Investigative reporting not your cup of tea?
I guess headline "news" suits you better.
I have an idea. If you don’t like it simply don’t read it.
What does it matter if this person is male or female.
“on immigration, I think his proposals are a non-starter, legally and morally. But what is out there is that people do want far more effective methods in dealing with Islamic terrorism.”
Do yo even read this crap before you post?
Cruz has adopted 99% of Trumps platform. Whatever damage this is supposed to do applies to Cruz too.
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