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[Gattigap]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Well, for one thing, only one of them has ever promoted the flat tax...

Really? I thought Bush has done so.

As an aside, remember that the Coalition Authority instituted a flat tax in Iraq. Grover Norquist is still laundering his bedsheets daily over that one.

The flat tax, long a dream of economic conservatives, is finally getting its day -- not in the United States, but in Iraq.



It took L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator in Baghdad, no more than a stroke of the pen Sept. 15 to accomplish what eluded the likes of publisher Steve Forbes, Reps. Jack Kemp (R-N.Y.) and Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.), and Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Tex.) over the course of a decade and two presidential campaigns.

"The highest individual and corporate income tax rates for 2004 and subsequent years shall not exceed 15 percent," Bremer wrote in Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number 37, "Tax Strategy for 2003," issued last month.

Voilà! Iraq has a flat tax, and the 15 percent rate is even lower than Forbes (17 percent) and Gramm (16 percent) favored for the United States. And, unless a future Iraqi government rescinds it, the flat tax will remain long after the Americans have left.

"It's extremely good news," said Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform and a Bush administration ally. Bremer's vaguely worded edict leaves open the possibility that Iraqis could face different levels of taxation below 15 percent, but "they told me it's a flat rate and it appears as though it's a flat rate," Norquist said. The tax fighter added: "It might be a hint to the rest of us."

In a slightly related point, Bush was quoted in the article as apparently liking the general idea.

President Bush, in Russia last year to see President Vladimir Putin, said: "The good news is that the flat tax in Russia is a good, fair tax -- much more fair, by the way, than many Western countries, I might add."

Gattigap