Posted by Howard Richman on May 15 2008 at 07:59:56:
My father, son, and I urged Senator McCain to pick Representative Ron Paul, Governor Mike Huckabee, and Warren Buffett to be on his financial team in our World Net Daily commentary today. Here is how we start:
Sen. Obama is currently claiming that President Bush´s economic policies are the cause of the stagnating U.S. economy. He is correct. Obama also claims that Sen. McCain will continue Bush´s failed policies, and to win McCain must show that he understands where Bush went wrong.We then go on to explain why each of these ideas works or doesn´t work. In our section about cutting business taxes, we wrote:There are four major Republican economic ideas. Two of them work and two of them don´t. Unfortunately, President Bush chose the two that don´t work, and that is the reason for the current U.S. economic stagnation. These two Republican economic ideas work:
These two Republican economic ideas don´t work:
- Reduce the size of U.S. government.
- Cut business taxes.
- Cut capital gains taxes.
- Welcome foreign investment that costs jobs.
The Bush administration did not cut the corporation income tax rate As a result, the U.S. corporate income tax (federal and state combined) continues to be one of the highest in the world with 35 percent being the maximum federal corporate income tax rate and with state corporate income taxes adding about 4 percent. Every other country but Japan has a lower corporate income tax. To his credit, McCain has advocated reducing the corporate income tax to 25 percent, which would make the U.S. tax rate much more competitive. The poor quality of economic advice President Bush received is best evident by the final report of the 2005 President´s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform. The two "ideal" plans the panel recommended would just reduce the corporate income tax to 31.5 percent and 30 percent, still leaving the U.S. corporate income tax one of the highest in the world.And finally we conclude:Gov. Mike Huckabee advocated going even further in his campaign for the presidential nomination. Huckabee recommended a 23 percent FairTax to replace the corporate income tax, the personal income tax, the payroll taxes, the gift tax and the estate tax as the centerpiece of his run for president.
Rather than repeat the Bush policies, McCain needs to make it clear that he has no intention of continuing them. He can do so by announcing at the Republican convention that Rep. Paul, Gov. Huckabee and Mr. Buffett will be on his economic team.HowardOur suggestion would be the choice of Huckabee as his running mate, and put in charge of tax reform; Paul could be director of management and budget in charge of finding ways to cut federal spending; and Warren Buffett could be the secretary of the treasury with instructions to implement Import Certificates to balance trade. If Sen. McCain picks this team, not only would he win the presidential election, but he would also preside over an economic boom after the election.