Posted by
Steven Insalaco on Thursday, April 16, 2009 10:17:28 AM
I understand the teaparties were about more than taxes. But nevertheless, that's the piece I want to address because it presents the biggest problem, by far, to conservatives. Not because we all hate taxes. That's not the point or the problem. The problem is that liberals have a dramatic advantage over conservatives on taxes. Why? Because they fundamentally agree with each other.
Liberals are not only on the same page with taxes, they're in the same paragraph.
This poses the biggest problem for conservatives in the elections to come. Not only are we NOT on the same page ... we're not even in the same chapter. Hell, at times we're not even in the same book.
And conservatives seem to be prancing around either unaware or hoping it will just go away. It will not go away. It poses, perhaps, the most dangerous problem to conservatives. Dangerous, because this alone will lose elections.
Two examples:
Mr. Forbes advocates a flat tax. Given no other choice, I would vote for him and a flat tax but I will never get excited about it, i.e., become actively involved. With all due respect to Mr. Forbes (and I mean that), I cannot figure out where he is coming from on this one. A flat tax, by definition, means that congress will have to leave it alone - completely leave it alone - in the years to come. Seriously, Mr. Forbes. Are you kidding?
To my mind, nothing less than a complete, total and unconditional repeal of the 16th amendment will be acceptable.
This brings us to our second example. Gov. Huckabee advocates the fair tax. Initially, I was somewhat excited about this. It included this bizarre thing about a monthly refund for the poor but on that I decided ... whatever, I guess I can live with that. But then I saw that he was talking about 23% (or something like that). WHAT?! Governor - again, with all due respect - you can't be serious.
To my mind a national sales tax would hover somewhere around 10%. Now, I know what the Governor and others would think of this, would think of me: He's very naive. The federal government could never operate such an amount.
And herein lies the impasse. The stalemate. Because, you see Governor, I'm thinking the very same thing about you.
4/16/09