Rand Paul unveils his Balco Plan for the economy

Sixteen straight years of growth...

Paul, calling his plan for a 14.5 percent flat-rate tax an “an economic steroid injection,” argued that the U.S. tax code had “grown so corrupt, complicated, intrusive and antigrowth” that it was no longer “fixable.”

Paul’s new “Fair and Flat Tax,” crafted with the help of the Heritage Foundation’s Stephen Moore and Arthur Laffer, the famous father of “supply-side” economics, would cover capital gains, rents, salaries, and individual wages. It would also preserve charity and mortgage deductions. Paul claimed it would amount to a $2 trillion tax cut and spur a GDP boost of 10 percent over 10 years while creating “at least 1.4 million new jobs.” 

The read among Republican operatives is that Paul’s move was similar to what New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie did in unveiling his Social Security reform proposal: Lay down a marker that forces others to respond. 

“I think we’re going to see more of this as the campaign goes on,” Bruce Haynes, a GOP consultant and a founding partner of Purple Strategies, said Thursday... 

Bruce Bartlett, a former Ronald Reagan adviser who often criticized former President George W. Bush on economic issues, shrugged off the proposal as a play for Republican primary votes. 

“Republicans are obsessed with cutting taxes for the ultra-wealthy and the flat tax is simply a way of packaging it so it looks fair and even-handed,’ Bartlett said. 

Bartlett said that Paul’s advisers, Moore and Laffer, had “zero credibility.” 

“Laffer, recall, said the Kansas plan would immediately raise growth so much that revenue would not fall,” Barlett said. “And Moore is widely known for making factual errors in almost everything he writes. Among Republicans, having the lowest flat-tax rate is like having the biggest dick in the locker room.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/rand-paul-threads-the-needle-on-flat-tax-119175.html#ixzz3dSNNmfZV