Thursday, August 12, 2004
Bush has an idea
One of his unscripted, uninformed, unfathomable ideas - the ones he comes up with when he's left too long out of sight of his minders. The ones that leave Karl Rove's head ready to explode.
He thinks it would be a good idea to simplify the tax system by imposing a national sales tax in place of the federal income tax. The tax code has been getting more regressive since Reagan, and this would be a real killer - working people are already taxed more heavily (rates on earned income are much higher than on income from assets), and sales taxes are even more burdensome on low- and middle-income people who spend most of their income on necessities.
In other words, it's Republican class warfare. The rich versus everyone else.
He thinks it would be a good idea to simplify the tax system by imposing a national sales tax in place of the federal income tax. The tax code has been getting more regressive since Reagan, and this would be a real killer - working people are already taxed more heavily (rates on earned income are much higher than on income from assets), and sales taxes are even more burdensome on low- and middle-income people who spend most of their income on necessities.
In other words, it's Republican class warfare. The rich versus everyone else.
When a supporter asked President Bush about scrapping the current tax code and replacing it with a national sales tax, he replied favorably: "I'm not exactly sure how big the national sales tax is going to have to be, but it's the kind of interesting idea that we ought to explore seriously."It didn't take long for the White House press office to deny that Bush really said what he said
WASHINGTON (AP)Flippity? Also floppity. AND dumb - really dumb.
The White House is denying that President Bush is considering a national sales tax.
The denial comes a day after the Bush created a stir by calling such a tax "an interesting idea that we ought to explore seriously."
