Politics

Now that we’re finally beginning to talk about tax reform to stimulate economic growth, the “flat tax vs. sales tax” debate has resurfaced.

For now, Mitt Romney is viewed as the current 2012 GOP front-runner, but if Rick Perry jumps in, the two will likely be the top contenders for the Republican nomination. But both politicians committed major policy blunders haunting them on the campaign trail.

Bush advanced personal accounts for Social Security during his 2000 campaign, focusing solely on the personal accounts and their benefits for working people, and contrasting them with the alternatives of tax increases and benefit cuts. But once elected, he allowed this reform model to be displaced by tax increases and benefit cuts as the core of reform, with personal accounts as the “dessert.” This left the reform without the grassroots appeal to overcome the opposition on such a politically sensitive issue as Social Security.

Sen. Graham is either unfamiliar with or willingly ignorant of this important work done by the Social Security Administration. He should spend a few hours studying it, or spend his time working on something else.

At stake in this election is, among other things, the fate of almost $4.6 trillion in federal budget surpluses that the government expects to collect over the next ten years.

This Issue Brief compares the tax and spending plans of Al Gore and George Bush, and provides both static and dynamic forecasting of the economic effects of the candidates' proposals.

Candidates Bob Dole and Jack Kemp have proposed a dramatic tax cut plan that is designed to stimulate increased economic growth, remedy the decline in the value of the dependent deduction, and reduce the punitive treatment of capital gains. An analysis demonstrates that the plan is likely to achieve its goals, and only requires a spending cut of less than 2% to pay for itself.