Romney Doesn't Get Taxes

You may remember that 1996 Republican candidate Steve Forbes championed the idea of a flat tax. Also, you may be aware that a major overhaul of the tax system has been languishing in Congress for half a decade or more, going absolutely nowhere despite the fact that there was a Republican House, Senate, President, and a conservative Supreme Court.

Anyway, while campaigning in Iowa, Mitt Romney said he opposes implementing a flat income tax because the concept is "unfair". He was asked about it because Rudy Giuliani indicated last week that he would consider a flat tax.

Romney seems to be unaware of the fact that 10% of $ 1,000 is $100, but 10% of $ 1,000,000 is $ 100,000. So, someone earning a million dollars would pay 1,000 times more money in taxes than someone earning $ 1,000. I don't understand where the fairness of that can be called into question.

It takes a real stretch of the human imagination to slap the label "regressive tax" on the flat tax. But, just for argument's sake, let's say that there is a real concern about the level of taxes paid by people at the lowest end of the income ladder. Then Congress could simply raise the income exemption level so that even more people who are " working poor" pay zero taxes. How can zero taxes for the poor be called unfair?

For a good overview of the Flat Tax, check out this article on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_tax
(Personally, I favor Milton Friedman's Negative Income Tax--read the whole article @ Wikipedia)