CSE Release on Support for Flat Tax

[2] Unfortunately, the tax reform debate has faded somewhat from an increasingly crowded public discourse in recent years. Those bent on preserving the status quo for their own political, financial, and powerful gain have succeeded in sidetracking the tax reform debate temporarily, but they have not derailed it.

[3] The American people still want a tax code that is fair, flat, and simple. They want a tax code that is not punitive and riddled with disincentives. They want a tax code that recognizes the goodness of the American people, not the guile of the federal government.

[4] Most of you have recently been hit smack dab in the face with the complexity and irrationality of the tax code as you went through the annual struggle to file your taxes accurately and on time. Like most Americans you probably spent many frustrating hours fighting forms and figures, digging for documentation, and checking and rechecking your math to make sure everything is right. And yet you're still not entirely sure that the IRS won't find some minute mistake and come knocking at your door with an audit.

[5] It's an annual agonizing ritual the American taxpayer suffers through year after year. Wouldn't it be nice if a different scenario were to play out during this time of year?

[6] Imagine sitting down with Form 1 from the IRS. Fill in your income, subtract your personal exemptions, tax 17 percent of the balance, write that number down, and you're done. Ten little lines, ten little minutes -- that's about all it will take to do your taxes each year under the Flat Tax.

[7] It doesn't get any simpler than that. It doesn't get any flatter. And most of all it doesn't get any fairer.

[8] At a time when the IRS is talking about conducting random audits and Americans are forced to work three and a half months each year just to pay their tax bill, fundamental tax reform should be in the forefront on the national debate.

[9] Our current tax code offends our sense of what it means to be an American. This country was found on the idea of fairness and equality. That everyone, regardless of race, creed, or social status, deserves to be treated the same.

[10] The current tax code finds as many ways as is possible to treat people differently, doling out special treatment to those who have the power and money to lobby for it. That's about as un-American as it gets.

[11] Under a Flat Tax there would be no special treatment, no favoritism, no tax breaks for corporations and special interests, no tax tables and no loopholes.

[12] A Flat Tax would mean no tax lobbyists and no tax lawyers. And, perhaps best of all, it would put an end to an intrusive IRS. The IRS would revert to its intended purpose as a revenue collector, functioning as a servant of the people not a supervisor.

[13] That's why the Flat Tax is so appealing to taxpayers. It speaks to our basic sense of fairness, to our desire for a simple an honest government that has faith in the people who consent to be governed.

[14] And it addresses the underlying arrogance at the core of the current tax system and the dependency on government that it creates.

[15] We have a government of the people, by the people and for the people. We are governed only because we give our consent to be governed.

[16] And yet, the government takes almost half of what we work so hard for and then expects us to say "thank you." When what they are really saying is, "you can't be trusted to spend your own money wisely, let us do it for you. We know better."

[17] And to keep taxpayers caught in this system, the government holds out a small carrot -- some tax credit or special break -- with one hand, while raiding the pantry with other.

[18] The arrogance of that is astounding. It ought to make every taxpayer in America stand up and demand the respect and the fairness afforded to free people in a free society.

[19] We have a unique opportunity to actually fundamentally reform the tax code. To fundamentally change the way government treats taxpayers. To fundamentally change the culture in Washington to worry more about the needs of taxpayers, and less about the needs of lobbyists and lawyers.

[20] I fully expect to have a second term, popular President in the White House and a comfortable majority in Congress come 2004 -- both of which are committed to tax reform. It could be a once in a lifetime chance to make real change in the way things are done in Washington.

[21] What better place to start than by overhauling an immoral, un-American tax code?