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Finance...
Rick
Perry: Flat Tax is “Tax Cut for
Everyone”
By Larry Kudlow
October 30, 2011
GOP
presidential candidate Rick Perry,
who unveiled his 20 percent flat tax Tuesday, said his economic plan
will
“lower taxes across the board” and pull back every regulation that has
been
implemented since the 2008 financial crisis. He also dismissed
criticism that
it would raise taxes on the middle class.
“This
is a tax cut for everyone in
this country. Those who want to pick this apart, those that want to
play class
warfare, that’s their business,” Perry said. “Let’s not get down in the
weeds
here from the standpoint of going and saying this person over here is
going to
get a little bit different tax.”
The
Texas governor is hoping his “Cut,
Balance and Grow” plan will help jump-start his fading presidential
campaign.
He’s now trailing four other contenders for the 2012 Republican
nomination in a
new CBS/New York Times poll. He stands at 6 percent, Herman Cain is
leading the
pack with 25 percent and Mitt Romney is in second place with 21 percent.
His
plan calls for a 20 percent flat
rate on individual and corporate income and has a $12,500 exemption per
person.
It will keep deductions for mortgage interest, charitable deductions
and local
taxes.
“We
need to get America working,”
Perry said. “We need a president who understands that the way to get
this
country back on track is by lowering the tax burden and particularly
the
regulatory climate and that’s what this plan does.”
In
fact, he plans on “pulling back
every regulation that’s gone into effect since 2008.” He would repeal
Dodd
Frank, section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act—which requires companies
to
provide an auditor’s report on the adequacy of their internal
controls—and
“Obamacare.”
“Let
me tell you, if you do just those
things, put this flat tax in place and the stock market would go
through the
roof,” he said. “But more importantly, there are going to be a lot of
people
who don’t have a job today that will have one.”
Perry
also vowed that his economic
plan, which cuts government spending and overhauls the Social Security
program,
will balance the budget by 2020.
And
if you don’t like the flat tax,
you can stay in the old system, he said.
As
for his rivals, Perry dismissed
Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan, saying the new sales tax “will not happen.”
He said
Mitt Romney’s economic plan “nibbles around the edges.”
“We
need to clearly put in a tax
structure that’s flat, that’s simple, that’s fair,” he said.
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