Posted on 12/24/2007 7:55:05 AM PST by Alex Murphy
WASHINGTON — Mike Huckabee, one of the most conservative Republicans in the 2008 presidential race, has embraced one of the most radical ideas on the campaign trail: a plan to abolish all federal income and payroll taxes and replace them with a single 23% national sales tax.
The idea -- dubbed the "fair tax" by proponents -- has been a political asset for Huckabee; its well-organized backers have helped catapult him from the back of the presidential pack to its top tier.
Sales tax proponents have tapped into seething voter hostility toward the Internal Revenue Service to become a below-the-radar political force, popping up at campaign events and candidate forums in Iowa and elsewhere.
The efforts on Huckabee's behalf by sales tax advocates helped spur his surprise second-place showing in an August Iowa straw poll -- the breakthrough that marked the beginning of his rise in the state and nationwide.
He is the only major presidential candidate to make the idea central to his campaign. "The first thing I'd love to do as president: Put a 'going out of business' sign on the Internal Revenue Service," he said at one debate.
Some wonder, however, whether his embrace of the plan eventually could turn into a liability.
The sales tax proposal has been around for years but languished on the fringes of practical politics and policy. Tax professionals generally regard the idea as impractical, regressive and even "crackpot," as one critic puts it.
It has gone nowhere in Congress. The 2005 Presidential Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform soundly rejected the idea. And many politicians shy away from it because it is easy for opponents to portray it as a huge tax increase -- as Democrats did in a 2006 Senate race in South Carolina.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
I have two problems with this.
1) I wouldn’t vote for a guy solely on the Fair Tax because I don’t think you’ll ever convince Congress to go along with it so you’d better have other reasons why you’d want that guy elected.
2) If you ever got the Democrats to *agree* to implementing the Fair Tax, they would probably keep the 23% sales tax and also find some way to keep the income tax it was meant to replace.
We saw this in Texas one time when the liberals were all in favor of the new tax. They just didn’t want to eliminate the old tax. Anyone in Congress that is reading this, make SURE you write the bill so they have to eliminate the old tax at the same time they are implementing the new tax. And don’t think for a minute some of us won’t be watching you.
It is worth remember that the original income tax was 6% for any income between $3,000 and $500,000/year.
VERY simple. Then Congress began to massage it...
Did Huck actually say 23%?
No! Failing to fully inform yourself about something before opening your mouth is madness!
You apparently know absolutely NOTHING about the Fairtax and refuse to follow the links provided to inform yourself.
I’m getting more than a little sick of these politicians of BOTH party’s coming up with these, self serving, radical plans of reform in government.
They proclaim their grandiose plans as if congress doesn’t even exist. They pander to the population claiming they will give all of us FREE health care, FREE health insurance, FREEDOM from taxes, building secure borders, the list goes on and on and on.
They want to treat everyone like fools and want us to believe all you have to do is ELECT US and it will be done as soon as we take office. All one has to do is look at the past and the success of any of their BIG PLANS have had.
Everyone should hear what all the candidates would LIKE to do, what their core belief’s are but DON”T MAKE PROMISES you can’t or won’t deliver.
Our own party candidates should never try to compare themselves to Ronald Reagan unless they are prepared to stand by their promises and deliver. The candidate who can show the country his CORE BELIEF’S and a HISTORY of those beliefs will, eventually, rise to the top or fall to the bottom.
Yep their whole life revolves around poopooing an idea put forth by the Church of Scientology!
Some sort of cosmic thing where creatures from another planet come and destroy the IRS.
But believe it or not, the nrst has lower rates than the income tax system has. IOW, legal participants in today's income/payroll tax system are paying more than they would under this nrst.
Real prices actually decrease - ie purchasing power actually increases - for legal participants in today's system. But illegals, criminals, and current tax cheats will begin having to pay.
That so many are unaware of the full extent of their tax burden is proof that making the tax burden visible would indeed have an effect on spending.
Merry Christmas!
Read my lips: “Lot’s of new taxes!” the Huckster.
I wonder what this figure really is?
I used the calculator and it was interesting on the amount of savings over the current Federal tax.
What I’m curious about it how it would effect the State tax?
If the State got it’s money from the 23%, then I would agree that the savings is worth it.
But if the States are still able to tax you on your income the same as now, then the 23% is added on top of the State income and sales tax.
I haven’t read the proposal but I’m not seeing a savings if the current 11.8% tax is replace with a 23% tax and State income and sales taxes are not done away with.
I didnt see it anywhere in his web page on the issues.
http://www.mikehuckabee.com/?FuseAction=Issues.View&Issue_id=5
I didn't read the article, but I assume they left out the estimated 20% in taxes already imbedded in anything one buys and the removal of corporate taxes would re-introduce competitive pricing back into the market.
Abolition of corporate taxes would send the message to foreign corporations that America is open for business and would increase competition for workers which would naturally raise salaries across the board. This would put more disposable income into the pockets of Americans, and thus increase consumer spending which of course would mean more tax revenue to the government.
Federalist #21
"A capitation is more natural to slavery; a duty on merchandise is more natural to liberty, by reason it has not so direct a relation to the person."
Thomas Jefferson: copied into his Commonplace Book.
“It is fairer to tax people on what they extract from the economy, as roughly measured by their consumption, than to tax them on what they produce for the economy, as roughly measured by their income.”
Thomas Hobbes
Ooops... those who choose to receive a rebate of necessity level spending may do so - irrespective of income.
I defy you to find me one person who can accurately predict the macro outcome, the complexity, and the bureaucracy of this hookey NEW tax scheme. It certainly is not the actual sucker candidate that bought into the new tax.
Oh please, the rebates insure everyone does not pay the same rate from the get go. Charge everyone the same amount! The only true solution to "Divide and Conquer".
Got to love it when a person, from a state being crushed by taxes, wants to tell the rest of us how a lower tax won’t work!
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