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 ...
Santorum’s “balanced-budget” demand is of course suicide because the Leftists will use it as an excuse to raise taxes, the opposite of what needs to happen. There must be pressure to cut taxes and spending and that isn’t done with a balanced budget amendment but with sound fiscal policy. A balanced budget amendment is a bad idea because it doesn’t address our most critical political and economic problem: big government. It simply shifts the burden of the government’s budget mismanagement problem onto the backs of the American people. Santorum’s offering of a “balanced budget” instead of less government is a terrible choice.
You have missed the point entirely!
The absolute reason why the cost of living has gone so out of control, is due entirely on the out of control expansion of Government.
In early America, the family system was very strong, because the Father could easily support a family of 6 to 8, on his job alone. But due to the rapid increase in the size of Government, disproportionate to the increase in Goods and Services, the cost of living has gone up to the point where it takes two income earners to support a family of just 3 or 4.
The unhealthy combination of regulation, higher taxes on business, restrictive government agencies, etc,, has accelerated the process to the breaking point. To go into business or manufacturing these days is nearly impossible, unless you have Millions backing you just to open the doors.
Count me on board as well. JediJones, your comment at #8 is insulting!
DO NOT pick winners and losers. Set a single - LOW - rate and let the creativity of the free market work its magic. Why is a “manufacturer” any better then a software publisher or service provider?
Which would no doubt include anchor babies. No thanks.
Anyone who uses such a term is a mindless cliche dispenser unworthy of the time or effort a serious conversation requires.
Sadly, we're up to our eyebrows with such people.
Rick Santorum is not a fiscal conservative. He is a social conservative and a national security conservative. Few these days are true fiscal conservatives. Ron Paul is but I can not vote for him because of his foreign policy. I choose to support Newt because he is the closest we got to a fiscal conservative. Now having said that I will vote for Rick Santorum if he wins the nomination. I will not vote or support either Mitt Romney or Ron Paul. My first choice is Newt.
If tax-PAYERS had more kids, that would be a good thing.
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.
“Unlike Newt Gingrich, Santorum has no real plan.”
That’s quite clear, from the article.
Rick is patching “some kind of .. uh..plan” as he trudges along, for the simple reason that he never had planned to really run for president. He’s not and never was a leader, but a follower.
I knew it when Vestman jeered and sneered at Cain’s 999 plan. He’s not interested in reforming anything ...just sticking to the status big gov quo.
I hope Newt sticks it to him GOOD on this.
Go Newt!!!!!! Gettin’ ready for your comeback, buddy!
That’s a really bad grade. Even Gingrich gets a better grade, pulling a C+. “That liberal Rino” Hunstman got a B+ from the group. Perry and Cain both had B-level grades as well.
Their comparison chart was useful. Turns out Santorum does want to reduce ALL corporate tax rates, to 17.5% (Gingrich proposed 12.5%)
Santorum proposes 0% for manufacturing, and Gingrich 12.5%.
Other than that, Santorum’s plan is more of an incremental change which is more likely to be implemented than some of the radical changes. But Gingrich does have an optional component, something I liked in Perry’s plan.
I don’t have a problem with treating manufacturing different, although I would prefer 0% corporate taxes for everybody. If Manufacturing has 0%, that’s better than 12.5%.
And having said that, I now apologize for forgetting that this isn’t a place to discuss policy.
“I like Newt’s plan better.”
Arthur Laffer, well-known economist and former Ronald Reeagan’s economy adviser, wrote:
“Jobs and wealth are created by those who are taxed, not by those who do the taxing. Government, by its very nature, doesn’t create resources but redistributes resources. To minimize the damages taxes cause the economy, the best way for government to raise revenue is a broad-based, low-rate flat tax that provides people and businesses with the fewest incentives to avoid or otherwise not report taxable income, and the least number of places where they can escape taxation. On these counts it doesn’t get any better than Mr. Gingrich’s optional 15% flat tax for individuals and his 12.5% flat tax for business. Each of these taxes has been tried and tested and found to be enormously successful.
Hong Kong, where there has been a 15% flat income tax on individuals since 1947, is truly a shining city on the hill and one of the most prosperous cities in history. Ireland’s 12.5% flat business income tax propelled the Emerald Isle out of two and a half centuries of poverty.
Imagine what would happen to international capital flows if the U.S. went from the second highest business tax country in the world to one of the lowest. Low taxes along with all of America’s other great attributes would precipitate a flood of new investment in this country as well as a quick repatriation of American funds held abroad. We would create more jobs than you could shake a stick at.
Fairness in taxation means that people and businesses in like circumstances have similar tax burdens. A flat tax, whether on business or individuals, achieves fairness in spades. A person who makes 10 times as much as another person should pay 10 times more in taxes. It is also patently obvious that it is unfair to tax some people’s income twice, three times or more after it has been earned, as is the case with the death tax.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204652904577192660439187438.html
For a "conservative" you sure do complain a lot about some wanting the government not to use the tax code to pick winners and losers.
Government needs to stay the hell out of doing that.
“Rob from Peter to Pay Paul, big government mentality. And some here claim that this rank stupidity will bring manufacturing back to the USA that has already left. (And loving it in their new homes.) But more importantly, this is tailored to help the big Unions, who Santorum is deeply involved with and goes out of his way to support.”
That’s exactly what Santorum did as Congressman all his career in Washington. Why would he change now?
Don’t you get it!!!???
It’s about “Family Values”, Being a “good” Catholic, Moral Superiotiy. For god’s sake! The Reverend Rick HOME SCHOOLS! What’s not to love and beleive everything his hollow promises and rhetoric claims?
Only in the new Bizarro world were Newt is “anti-Reagan” and Romney is a “conservative” would a plan to cut one tax in half and eliminate another all together be a bad idea.
Not as long as more kids equals more unfunded entitlement spending and more deficit spending.
That's a Ponzi scheme.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.