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Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain visits Washington today to attend events at the American Enterprise Institute and National Press Club. Mr. Cain has been polling at or near the top of the 2012 GOP presidential field over the last few weeks. Earlier at AEI, he took part in a conversation on his 9-9-9 tax plan with one of the think tank's tax scholars, Kevin Hassett. The plan would replace the current tax system with a 9 percent business tax, a 9 percent personal income tax and a 9 percent national sales tax. Following Cain's appearance, AEI held a plan discussion...

The intensity of the ongoing Republican presidential debates has a very uplifting silver lining. Specifically, the competition ensures a much needed discussion of the proper mode of federal taxation. Texas Governor Rick Perry seeks somewhat of a flat tax, and the positive implications of such a move would be quite something. Not only would this reduce the price of work for most Americans, but it would make tax preparation a snap such that a lot of fecund minds whose employment is a function of byzantine tax laws would be released into more productive lines of work; the U.S. economy a...

With Rick Perry’s call for a 20% Flat Tax, the movement for fundamental, pro-growth tax reform became unstoppable. Perry, Herman Cain, and Mitt Romney are now the only viable candidates for the Republican presidential nomination remaining. With both Cain and Perry now offering dramatic pro-growth tax reform proposals, Romney will either jump on the tax reform bandwagon or be left in the dust (or possibly both). The only pro-growth tax cuts in Romney’s 59-point economic plan are a reduction in the corporate income tax rate to 25% (from 35% today) and the elimination of the death tax. However, both Perry...

What treat on Halloween! GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain is coming to the American Enterprise Institute on October 31st for a 9 AM chat with AEI tax guru Kevin Hassett. (I just might sneak in a few questions, too!) As you know, Cain’s 9-9-9 tax plan has incited energized discussion about the impact of taxes on Americans. The plan would throw out our current tax system and replace it with a 9 percent business tax, a 9 percent personal income tax, and a 9 percent national sales tax. Many economists believe that this move would promote growth, but detractors argue...

Plunging into the heated debate over taxes among Republican presidential contenders, former US Senate candidate Mitt Romney today is running a series of full-page newspaper ads attacking the 17 percent flat tax proposed by candidate Steve Forbes. "The problem with the Forbes flat tax is that it isn't flat at all -- it's a zero tax on the wealthy and a 17 percent tax on working Americans," Romney said yesterday. "I'm hoping that by running these ads voters will realize the Forbes flat tax is a gimmick, a phony, and not what it pretends to be." The ads note that...

First of all, let me congratulate Rick Perry, and Republicans in general, for focusing on the idea of less spending and lower taxes. This is the complete opposite of the kind of “austerity” approach that fiscal conservatives often stumble into during times of budget distress. snip The first reaction of government insiders and their corporate cronies is never to cut themselves off, but rather to reduce important services. Thus, we get the same waste and theft as before, fewer services, and higher taxes. snip Less spending should be focused on cutting waste and graft, and preserving, as much as possible,...

Perry and Cain, both contenders in the race to be the next Republican candidate for president, are proposing massive overhauls of the current progressive income-tax system to one based on a flat tax, though Perry’s proposal allows an out for taxpayers who want to stick with the current system. Based on the broad outlines offered Tuesday, Perry’s plan “is likely to be a tax cut for nearly everybody,” said Howard Gleckman, a resident fellow at the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center in Washington. snip As for middle-income people, under Perry’s proposal they could continue to claim deductions for mortgage interest, charitable...

At a private fundraiser in Corpus Christi, Texas hosted by the Nueces County Republican Women, Cain told the group how his ’9-9-9′ plan measured up against Texas Governor Rick Perry’s recent ‘Cut, Balance, and Grow’ plan. Cain said, “Bottom line, Governor Perry’s flat tax lite is no competition for 9-9-9.” “Every interview that I do now till the end of the week, they’re going to want to compare it to the 999 plan,” said Cain, who elaborated on the many differences between his plan and Perry’s plan.

Our tax system is a source of mystery and headache for many, filled with confusing benefits and detriments, depending on whether the payer did what his political masters wanted him to do. Even more disturbing is that most revenues have been hidden behind the sticker prices and omitted from our pay stubs. Revenues were hidden by politicians for two reasons: to make it impossible for the payer to determine if he received value for his dollar, and so that funds could be easily misappropriated on things the payer never used or could ever use. Herman Cain suggests that you visit...

Governor Rick Perry of Texas has announced a plan, which he outlines in the Wall Street Journal, to replace the corrupt and inefficient internal revenue code with a flat tax. Let’s review his proposal, using the principles of good tax policy as a benchmark.

Seeking to jump start his flagging presidential campaign and establish his pro-growth and fiscal responsibility credentials, Governor Rick Perry is unveiling a tax plan that will not jump start the economy and is fiscally irresponsible. In a nutshell, Mr. Perry would give taxpayers a choice between filing under the current income tax system—with all its flaws—and an alternative flat tax 20 percent system. Under the latter, families could maintain their mortgage deductions if they earn less than $500,000, which is about 99 percent of taxpayers, and could declare exemptions of $12,500 for each family member. It seems appealing—a simplified tax...

Praise for Rick Perry’s "Cut, Balance & Grow" Plan See the various comments from people we pay attention to. ________________________________________ “Rick Perry announced his tax plan today, which I’ll go on record as saying I, El Rushbo, think is great. It’s fabulous. I like it. … This is why a lot of people are going to like it. It is a return to fiscal sanity.” Rush Limbaugh on “The Rush Limbaugh Show,” 10/25/11 “This program he’s come up with is a great program, this tax plan. … Perry has come up with one hell of a proposal.” Mark Levin on...

A Washington Post/ABC News poll released Wednesday morning found that Americans are divided on tax plans proposed by two of the leading contenders for the Republican presidential nomination, businessman Herman Cain and Texas Gov. Rick Perry. The poll found that a majority of Republican voters favor the flat tax but a majority oppose Cain’s plan. The poll found only 36 percent of the total population surveyed favoring Cain’s “9-9-9 plan.” The plan, which has become one of the cornerstones of Cain’s campaign, would establish the federal income tax and the corporate tax rate at 9 percent while adding a national...

A lot of people are wondering: Given that Rick Perry’s flat-tax plan would effectively lower tax rates for nearly every American, what will it do to the budget deficit? We have at least one initial answer to that question. The Perry campaign has enlisted economist John Dunham to estimate the fiscal impact of the governor’s new tax plan. According to Dunham’s analysis, a CBO-style “static analysis” of the tax plan will yield revenues $588.9 billion lower than “those currently assumed in the Congressional Budget Office’s forecasts,” with total revenues equaling 18.1 percent of GDP. Using a dynamic scoring system that...

p>As I wrote in an earlier post, an outside consulting firm hired by the Rick Perry presidential campaign has analyzed the revenue and growth impacts of his flat tax plan as follows: 1. Under static scoring — assuming no growth impact from a more efficient, pro-investment tax code — the Perry Tax Plan (call it PTP-SS) would raise $4.7 trillion less than the Congressional Budget Office baseline forecast from 2014-2020. Of course, that forecast assumes all the Bush tax cuts expire, which is highly unlikely. Yet even under that scenario, revenue-to-GDP would be back to its historical average of around...

GRAY COURT, S.C. – Rick Perry, Republican presidential candidate and Texas governor, has released an economic plan full of long-held conservative goals, including personal accounts for Social Security, an optional flat tax, major spending cuts and a series of tax cuts. The plan would reduce the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent, eliminate taxes on dividends and many capital gains and essentially cap individual tax rates at 20 percent. Perry argues these tax cuts will spur economic growth by creating a more favorable environment for wealthy people and corporations to start or expand businesses. But without significant...

Fiscal Policy: This is a time for big ideas that take some political risk. Rick Perry's flat-tax solution largely fits that bill, and so do the proposals from most others in the GOP field. Then there's Romney. Perry this week finally unveiled the sort of detailed economic plan that, in a well-planned campaign, he would've had ready a couple of months ago. So it may be too late to help him much. But it's never too late to inject good ideas into the political mix. Perry's plan isn't perfect, but it would be a huge improvement over the laws in...

Mark Levin is very impressed with Rick Perry’s new economic and tax proposal that Perry announced today. video/audio at link

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Rick Perry announced his tax plan today, which I'll go on record as saying I, El Rushbo, think is great. It's fabulous. I like it. And the left is coming unhinged. We have just two examples. First from Debbie "Blabbermouth" Schultz, who was on MSNBC today, interviewed by the anchor Thomas Roberts, who said, "What is your reaction when you hear how Rick Perry is talking about President Obama and the fact that he says he's only given big government schemes that have failed the American people?" SCHULTZ: My reaction to Rick Perry's new-old plan is that...

Rick Perry was in a terrible bind. His initial campaign boomlet had busted; his debate performances turned off millions of Republicans; and he was in danger of becoming irrelevant in the 2012 race for President. He was – and maybe still is – desperate. This is precisely the time when politicians tend to do incredibly dumb things. Perry didn’t; instead, he brought forth an economic plan that is politically doable and will be a clear benefit to the country (even if parts of it are rather opaque). Today, Perry will put forth an economic plan outlined in his Wall Street...