All the other presidential candidates panned Herman Cain’s “9-9-9” plan at Tuesday’s GOP debate. And a wide range of independent analysts have concluded that the plan would raise taxes on the poor and most of the middle class. Few serious people are taking it seriously. So it’s troubling that former Reagan economist Arthur Laffer (in photo) is a fan of the plan, because this is the same guy the Brownback administration is paying $75,000 to help develop a new tax policy. “The whole purpose of a flat tax, a la 9-9-9, is to lower marginal tax rates and simplify the tax code. With lower marginal tax rates (and boy will marginal tax rates be lower with the 9-9-9 plan), both the demand for and the supply of labor and capital will increase,” Laffer wrote in the Wall Street Journal. “Output will soar, as will jobs. Tax revenues will also increase enormously — not because tax rates have increased, but because marginal tax rates have decreased.”
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