Free Republic

Former presidential hopeful, Steve Forbes said he believes Republicans would be best served postponing “everything” before passing any laws to avoid the looming fiscal cliff. “Just say everything stays the same for another three months, six months because early next year it will be apparent that doing harm to this economy is not going to be a smart thing to do,” Forbes said in an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV. “The president hopes to ram this through before the shakiness of the economy becomes evident to the voters.” …

Mr. Speaker: We are losing the cliff war in terms of public opinion, but the tables can be turned. A few days ago you offered tax increases via eliminating or capping deductions. Your generous gesture won no goodwill from Democrats and the mainstream media. Moreover any tax increase now only damages the economy. Concerning deductions, why give stuff away now for no real tax reform or simplification? Here’s what the GOP should do now: I. The House passes a bill extending for a year or at least six months all the cliff items – current income tax rates; the Alternative...

Mitt Romney will win big tonight. His popular vote margin will be between 3 – 5%. He will win the Electoral College I believe by a vote of 321 to 217, and with luck, even more. He will win all of the states McCain carried in 2008 which will give him 180 electoral votes. He will also carry the three states that normally go Republican that in 2008 went for Obama – Indiana, North Carolina and Virginia. That brings him to 219. He will also take Florida, which will bring him to 248 votes. Although the Obama campaign will deny...

“People call this the ‘new normal.’ Let me assure you there is nothing normal about this at all. It’s the new ‘abnormal,’ and it won’t last, because as free people we won’t stand for it…”With those remarks, business magnate and former presidential candidate Steve Forbes drew thunderous applause from his audience last Wednesday. Headlining the “Power Up!” business and motivational seminar with Sarah Palin, Rudy Giuliani, and Indian-born Zig Ziglar protégé Krish Dhanam, Mr. Forbes was speaking before a crowd of ten thousand at the Idaho Center indoor sporting complex. Forbes had just finished explaining why a confluence of...

Barack Obama doesn't think the rich are paying their fair share of income taxes. So what is their fair share? I posed this question to Fox News commentator Juan Williams in Dallas the other day. "The top 10 percent of income earners are paying 71 percent of all income taxes," I said. "Isn't that enough?" Although Juan was trying to defend the Obama position, he didn't have an answer. Then I turned the question around. "The bottom one-half of the population is paying zero, or close to zero, income taxes. What's their fair share?" He didn't have an answer to...

Publisher Steve Forbes says he has no trepidation in backing Rick Perry for president, despite his low poll numbers, because the presidential race remains “fluid.” Forbes — who ran for president twice himself — also told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer Tuesday that he has no trouble with Perry’s occasional gaffes, as the Texas governor comes “across much better in person.” “I think this race has proved it is a very fluid situation and already Newt Gingrich is starting to get some of the flak that every temporary front-runner seems to get,” Forbes said. “So I think this is going to be...

As you may know, Republican Presidential candidate Rick Perry is unveiling his proposal for an optional flat tax. ...Of equal importance, Perry is for the first time unveiling his thoughts on Medicare reform. ___ Perry reforms could significantly expand the individual health insurance market. As I’ve written many times, the employer tax exclusion for health insurance is American health care’s original sin: a $300 billion-a-year tax subsidy that is arguably the largest driver of runaway health spending in America. People who get insurance through their employers are that much further removed from shopping for less wasteful, more value-oriented health plans....

Former presidential candidate and current media mogul Steve Forbes said Thursday the Texas Republican governor Rick Perry is likely to capture the Republican presidential nomination. "He was good on taxes and spending in Texas; he was very good on tort reform. Texas has been a cesspool for injury lawyers, and he made major changes - and the proof of it was they all moved to Oklahoma. And obviously I like his ideas on a flat tax. I think he genuinely wants to get the thing done. So it seems to be a good combination," Mr. Forbes said in an interview...

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...

Call this post “the good, the bad, and the ugly” for Rick Perry today to start off a new week for his campaign. He clearly wanted to start with a boost, and had fiscal-conservative icon Steve Forbes on Fox News yesterday with an endorsement of the Texas governor, tied to the upcoming release of Perry’s economic recovery plan based on the Flat Tax that Forbes himself championed in the 1990s: On Tuesday, Rick Perry will unveil his economic plan which includes measures to drastically reform the tax code and lower the corporate tax rate. It will also, he says, provide...

The Rise of Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 and other Republican plans show the nation is hungry for a flat tax The nightmare on Main Street -- the federal income tax code -- is ending, which is fantastic news for our beleaguered economy. Dramatically simplifying this monstrosity would unleash a powerful wave of prosperity and job creation. Thankfully in 2012 we will get a mandate to make this happen. Presidential contender Herman Cain vaulted to the head of the Republican pack when he proposed his 9-9-9 plan -- a flat 9% income tax, corporate tax and national sales tax. Even better, Texas...

Please go to the link to see a video interview of Steve Forbes' endorsement of Rick Perry for POTUS and hear a glimpse of what The Perry Plan offers and what that will mean to America.

Two-time presidential candidate Steve Forbes endorsed Texas Gov. Rick Perry's presidential bid — and his campaign's flat tax — in an interview on Fox News. Forbes said Perry's plan will have "a very low rate, with great, generous exemptions for adults and for children," adding it would also lower the corporate tax rate. Businessman Herman Cain has said he is modeling his 9-9-9 plan on Forbes' flat tax principles — though according to a Forbes spokesman, Cain and Forbes have never discussed the plan. Forbes said he believes Perry's plan will be more appealing than Cain's because it does not...

The nightmare on Main Street -- the federal income tax code -- is ending, which is fantastic news for our beleaguered economy. Dramatically simplifying this monstrosity would unleash a powerful wave of prosperity and job creation. Thankfully in 2012 we will get a mandate to make this happen. Presidential contender Herman Cain vaulted to the head of the Republican pack when he proposed his 9-9-9 plan -- a flat 9% income tax, corporate tax and national sales tax. Even better, Texas Gov. Rick Perry will, in a few days, unveil his version of a flat tax, a concept that I...

"Rick Perry -- now coming out with, really embracing Steve Forbes' flat tax idea -- that's going to gain momentum. I look forward to hearing more of the details," she said. "In fact, when I heard that Rick Perry was embracing of Steve Forbes' idea, I went into my garage and dug out an old book from 1999 that Steve Forbes had written. ......Many aspects of it make so much sense - - about the freedom to choose - taxpayer how to file your taxes …..choose a simpler, fairer flat tax…..many of the aspects of it make so much sense."....

[snip] “Any flattening of the tax rates would have distributional consequences across income classes,” wrote CRS economics specialist Jane Gravelle. Of course, to many flat tax proponents, that is part of the point of such a system. Nobel prize-winning economist Milton Friedman, the modern father of the flat tax, challenged progressive taxation as inherently unfair. After all, even under a flat tax, the wealthy pay more, as they have more income, noted Friedman. To increase the percentage of their burden is to use the tax system as a means to redistribute income, in his view. “This seems a clear case...

Former presidential candidate and Forbes magazine editor Steve Forbes tells Newsmax that President Obama’s planned economic reforms are “the definition of insanity” — repeating failed policies in the hopes that somehow they will become successful. In a wide-ranging exclusive interview, Forbes also declares that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke should have resigned a long time ago, says Obama will be a one-term president, and looks for significant and positive reforms in Washington after the 2012 elections. He also predicts the United States will make an “astonishing” move and return to a gold standard in the next five years, and says...

And another advocate for the only logical outcome out of the disastrous monetary and fiscal catastrophe the US finds itself in emerges in the face of billionaire, and open administration critic, Steve Forbes. From Human Events: "A return to the gold standard by the United States within the next five years now seems likely, because that move would help the nation solve a variety of economic, fiscal, and monetary ills. “What seems astonishing today could become conventional wisdom in a short period of time,” Forbes said. Such a move would help to stabilize the value of the dollar, restore confidence...

A return to the gold standard by the United States within the next five years now seems likely, because that move would help the nation solve a variety of economic, fiscal, and monetary ills, Steve Forbes predicted during an exclusive interview this week with HUMAN EVENTS. “What seems astonishing today could become conventional wisdom in a short period of time,” Forbes said. Such a move would help to stabilize the value of the dollar, restore confidence among foreign investors in U.S. government bonds, and discourage reckless federal spending, the media mogul and former presidential candidate said.  The United States used...

I was watching Forbes on Fox yesterday, and I could have sworn that I heard Steve Forbes say that a potential repeal and replace of Obama Care could be accomplished by Republicans pushing for a repeal and a replacement with a Health Care bill that would be similar to the food stamp program - and it would be set up on a sliding scale basis. This got me to thinking... How could Dems possibly be against this? First of all, it could be set up as being voluntary - no individual mandate. No one is required to sign up for...