Rick Perry had planned to release his major economic agenda tomorrow, but he decided to unveil a great deal of his plan in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today.
In the op-ed, Perry announced his plan to institute a flat tax of 20%, but only to those Americans who want to make the switch. Everyone else can keep their current tax rate if they so choose. Perry’s plan also allows young earners to privatize their Social Security. The plan abolishes some taxes on the wealthy and drops the top rate on top earners and corporations to 20%. It also paves the way toward repealing a slew of government agencies and basically every piece of major legislation passed since 2008.
“First, we will lower the corporate tax rate to 20%—dropping it from the second highest in the developed world to a rate on par with our global competitors,” Perry wrote. “We will eliminate the tax on qualified dividends and long-term capital gains to free up the billions of dollars Americans are sitting on to avoid taxes on the gain… puts an immediate moratorium on pending federal regulations and provides a full audit of all regulations passed since 2008 to determine their need, impact and effect on job creation. ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank and Section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley must be quickly repealed and, if necessary, replaced by market-oriented, common-sense measures…Cut, Balance and Grow also gives younger workers the option to own their Social Security contributions through personal retirement accounts.”
Perry’s plan sounds like a dream come true for the Tea Party crowd, and I’m rather skeptical about any Perry plan that involves Social Security. Keep in mind that Perry once called Social Security a “ponzi scheme” and a “monstrous lie,” so his plan to allow young people to switch to private Social Security accounts is just a way for him to quietly undermine the strength of the popular social safety net by handing money to Wall Street. Without young workers, Social Security would likely “whither and die on the vine” as Newt Gingrich would say.
Perry’s flat tax idea is also confounding. He says that his plan replaces the current tax code. But Perry also says that people who want to keep their current tax rate, can do so. Those ordinary Americans who switch to the 20% flat tax, however, will pay more since most Americans actually pay 15% or less. Under Perry’s plan, corporations and the wealthy will be taxed at 20%. Corporate and top individual rates are currently 35%. His plan also abolishes capital gains and inheritance taxes. Perry’s plan is really just a gift to the top 1% and to corporate America. That basically strangles the government of funding, which will undoubtedly lead to the dismantling of several departments such as the Departments of Energy and Education. And would also likely spell doom for the EPA since another aim of Perry’s plan includes repealing regulations and stopping new ones from being put in place. He is also planning to repeal the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and the Dodd-Frank financial reforms put in place in the wake of the financial meltdown in 2008. That would allow Wall Street and health insurance companies to do whatever they want. This is not a formula for job creation. It just doubles down on the same failed policies that Republicans have tried before.
To sum it all up, this is a HUGE giveaway to the wealthy, to corporations, and strikes a major blow against needed regulations and Social Security. This plan is nothing new. It’s the SAME policies we’ve all heard time and time again from basically every Republican in the field and in Congress. We’ve tried lower taxes. It didn’t work. We’ve tried cutting regulations. It didn’t work. Things have just gotten worse. The last thing we all need is another Texas Republican in the White House, especially a Texan who is dumber and more dangerous than George W. Bush. Republicans have proved once again, that if at first you don’t succeed, keeping trying, even when all your plan does is fail and destroys America in the process.
How’d that work for Texans? Oh, yeah, unemployment, uninsured and undereducation grew.
This new plan by Rick Perry is so over the top stupid and so completely ignorant that it will in fact cause his star to RISE TO THE VERY TOP of the heap now. He will very quickly outshine Cain’s star. Reason? Can you find any plans that any of the campaigners have come up with that make any sense whatsoever? No? That’s why whoever comes up with a new bizarre and meaningless plan get to be the winner of the week.
Watch. Perry will either be the nominee or he’ll be the VP pick for the nominee.
Do not discount these important qualifications Perry has:
1. He’s stupider than Bush was. That makes him easier to digest to Teatards, who are entralled with nonsense.
2. He loves Jesus more than his mother or his wife or even the Hispanic boy his wife caught him in bed with a decade or so ago.
3. He has a track record of letting businesses come into TX unregulated and untaxed. A RECORD. Which other candidate has a clear record like that? Not even Romney can boast that. Not even Romney.
4. Those businesses from item #3? Well, they’re still giving to his campaign.
5. Lastly, the South won’t vote for Romney, a voting bloc that the GOP MUST have to win.
Wait, wait, wait..BACK UP
“..even the Hispanic boy his wife caught him in bed with a decade or so ago.”
LOL, pleeeease tell me this has some basis in reality—as in, it actually happened. Pleeease, lmao.
Someone inform this knuckle-dragging cretin that it’s impossible to cut your way out of a recession.