Posted on 02/18/2012 11:26:25 PM PST by JediJones
An antitax advocacy group zinged Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum’s tax plan, giving him a grade of “D+” grade and the dubious honor of proposing what “may be the worst idea of any of the Republican candidates.”
”The good news is Santorum has gotten more specific about his tax plan since last month when we gave him a D+,” economist William McBride wrote on Thursday. “The bad news is… he’s gotten more specific.”
Mr. McBride said the biggest problem with Mr. Santorum’s proposal is the sharply different corporate tax rates he would establish. Mr. Santorum would halve the corporate tax rate to 17.5% from its current top rate of 35%. Manufacturers, however, would not have to pay any corporate taxes.
Mr. McBride said the idea is “grossly unfair,” and unlikely to gain traction in Washington. If it did, he said, many businesses would “suddenly claim to be a manufacturer.”
The tax group also took aim at Santorum’s suggestion to triple the tax deduction families can take for each child. “This is obviously a big tax cut, and might spur growth, or it might just spur child making,” Mr. McBride wrote. The Tax Foundation echoed concerns expressed earlier this week by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center that tripling the child tax deduction could push more low-income families off the tax rolls.
While the Santorum campaign has filled in some of the details in recent weeks, big ones remain missing, Mr. McBride wrote. The plan would collapse the current six rates to just two — 10% and 28% — but it doesn’t specify who would pay those rates, he said, adding: ”That’s kind of important.”
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.wsj.com ...
Very liberal of you. You think you're entitled to the fruits of others labors to grow government even more. You sure you didn't make a wrong turn and accidentally end up on a conservative website?
“Santorum was a prolific supporter of earmarks, having requested billions of dollars for pork projects”
In 2006 at the Pittsburgh Zoo, Santorum boasted in front of local reporters about how he’d fetched $500,000 from federal taxpayers’ money to build one of the most luxurious polar-bear exhibits. “If the pot of money is there, I’m going to make sure we get a piece of that money,” he said.
Also in 2006, he earmarked $500,000 for the completion of the Pittsburgh bike trail.
Another pork secured by Santorum in 2003 was $3 million for building a parking garage, another $2 million for another parking garage in 2005 ...
In his career as senator, he required $3.5 billion in earmarks and sponsored spending bills of a total $53 billion.
Just imagine if 100 Senators did the same as Santorum, the government spending would have grown by $5.3 TRILLION.
“Rick Santorum is a pro-life statist. He is. You will have to deal with it. He is a big government conservative. Santorum is right on social issues, but has never let his love of social issues stand in the way of the creeping expansion of the welfare state. In fact, he has been complicit in the expansion of the welfare state.” Erick Erickson
http://www.redstate.com/erick/2012/01/06/what-a-big-government-conservative-looks-like/
Now you're talking. The Leftists, who would love to pass a "balanced budget amendment", would run the other way on a SPENDING LIMITATION AMENDMENT.
Can you imagine any Dem voting for that? He's probably get kicked out of the Party. Be hard to get the votes for that.
Great. Typical liberal debate tactic — when you can’t argue the point, you start insulting the other person.
My post said NOTHING about how much the government should spend. Taxes WILL be collected to cover the spending one way or another unless you think deficits can just go on forever, and if some people are allowed to freeload, those taxes must be extracted from others. So your championing untaxing the estate is also an attack on everyone else with regular investment income, forcing them to pay higher taxes to make up the difference.
How about explaining why one person must pay taxes on their investments just because they happened to sell them while alive while another person’s estate should not have to pay taxes on the same type of investments just because the previous owner died. I don’t think you understand what I wrote and how different it is from how inheritance tax is done today. Today, the full inheritance is taxed at 55%, while my post was to tax only the NET gain at the same 15% rate that other investments pay.
If any investment is going to be taxed, all investments should be taxed.
Not twice as they are today at the corporate level and then again as capital gains as liberals like, not deferred forever as eliminating the death tax would accomplish, but ONCE at the individual level when the gains are realized so all investors and investments are treated the same.
Imagine two seniors with 1000 shares of Apple stock. They both get sick. One of them sells his stock to prepare for hospital bills and realizes a $400K gain, must pay $60K in capital gains tax, and then dies leaving $340K to his heirs. The other just dies and his heirs get the full $400K tax free since you eliminated estate taxes and the senior never realized his capital gains so never paid the $60K tax that was deferred while he held the investment. Explain why you would treat these two investors differently.
Conservatives should NOT favor unequal treatment. I can see why you like Santorum. He’s not a fiscal conservative, and neither are you. You’re both social engineers, looking for ways to shift tax burdens around as though government should be making people’s decisions for them.
“I knew it when he jeered and sneered at Cain’s 999 plan. He’s not interested in reforming anything ...just sticking to the status big gov quo.”
That moment is exactly when I dismissed Santorum as a worthy candidate.
That's one of the most idiotic things I've ever read on this forum.
You're the poster child for an ignore feature.
Having more children is only good for society if the people having them have the means and capability to support their children. IMHO...I see way too many people who have children who have no apparent means of supporting those children. No, I’m not saying you have to be rich. But you should be able to pay for your children’s food, clothing, home and education w/o government support.
Jedi, the point is that the job is not getting done by educators. I home school in order that the job get done, and get done properly. I don't homeschool because I want to, but because it is the only way I can get the job done with the resources God has given me. It is my responsibility to educate my kids, not the government's. It is far less "efficient" in the long run, to produce an uneducated and/or reeducated young adult.
I believe in school choice and dismantling the government monopoly on education. Just like welfare, a government school should be the option of last resort.
Ditto
Only if personal exemptions are also abolished. Otherwise people with kids or those who earn less than the exemption are indirectly subsidizing those who enjoy the full exemption. Personally, I like a flat tax with some amount for each individual in the household exempt from taxes, so that basic needs can be met before taxes come out. Better yet a NRST exempting wholesale food, rent and mortgage interest on a primary residence. Better privacy with a NRST, and more incentives to save and invest.
That's a fair point, but ignores the utility that can't be quantified in dollars and cents - that of parental bonding and the competitive diversity that it breeds. Plus, if I had to churn my own butter I'd be able to retire my shake weight :)
Standardization brings efficiency; true. But it also tends to stifle innovation, as most efficient producers and economies of scale drive out competition. School choice and breaking the NEA and teacher unions are essential, but to see that supplemented with millions of home schooled kids raised with strong family bonds would bring long term advantages that we can't even foresee.
All Santorum has to do is drop the 0% manufacturing tax rate and he’s golden. Cutting the corporate tax rate in half across the board would make the economy soar, manufacturing along with it. In fact, manufacturing has recently gained traction as a sector.
Maybe Romney could take the VP slot ;-)
Thanks for showing that the Mitt/Rick plan is working according to mitt’s/the GOP E plan.
Yet, the deceived will never ‘get the obvious’ because they listen to the deceiver. They’ve spent 3+ years working on their plan, you guys will ‘get it’ when this country is no more and/or blaming someone else.
We'll see what you say when said "child" of your kind ends up being a corrupt cop who rapes you and your family in jail.
For your information, each and every Balanced Budget Amendment I have seen getting fairly strong support from GOPers and conservatives has included a cap on % of income that the Fed can take from us. There are at least two proposals in the Senate that I cloud live with. I doubt that Rick’s or Mr.Newt’s proposals would be substantially different.
I wholeheartedly support a BalBud Amendment of that type, and furthermore, believe that until and unless we get such a law in place, the US will get crushed by our own profligacy.
Thank you for your post suggesting that the organization making this “report” and grading the GOP candidates may not be reliable.
You are correct. The “Tax Policy Center” doesn’t look like any kind of a conservative group. I wouldn’t pay any attention to their “grade” of Rick’s tax plan. Let’s wait and see what a real conservative group like the Club for Growth has to say about Rick’s plan. I’m sure a real group of economic conservatives would give his plan at least a B grade.
The stuff posted on this thread is not mainstream conservative ideas. This thread is crawling with amateur and professional democrat operatives bashing away at Rick, as if anyone cares what they post on this thread. Don’t pay attention to the polls manufactured by liberal media/academics or trash posted on the internet by democrats claiming to be conservatives. Obama is in serious political trouble and we’re going to defeat him in November, with either Romney, Gingrich, or Santorum.
Right on target. The group that produced this report does not appear to be any kind of conservative tax policy group.
Can’t disagree w/your statement; however, it is extraneous to the point I was making.
Perhaps I did not do a good enough job of explaining it; at any rate it is rather a secondary issue and there are many more that should be considered as to whether Rick is a good candidate or not.
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