Is Huckabee a Southern-Fried Buchanan?

FairTax resonates--candidate profits

The FairTax deserves more than a passing mention of what drives the public to support candidates who have embraced the idea. Or, put another way, the income tax system is so hated and perceived as so grossly unfair that Mike Huckabee's message is resonating with many "victims" who happen to live in early primary states.

Only those who work in and around the tax writing process and the camp followers who make up the income tax "industry" miss the reality: 67,500 pages of indecipherable tax regulations bedevils every taxpayer. Embedded tax costs are killing off the "Made in America" label by putting American producers at a severe price isadvantage. Our annual reporting torture costs taxpayers $265 billion just to complete the forms, get advice and maintain records. For this princely sum, the IRS still comes up $350 billion short of what is owed every year.

Every taxpayer has learned to laugh at promises that the tax code will be made more fair and more simple. Even the Alternative Minimum Tax--which all admit was ineptly constructed--cannot be more than "patched" by a Congress that looks at the tax code as a plaything instead serious business affecting the national economy and the peace of mind of citizens. There is a growing recognition that the tax code is really all about power, punishments, rewards and citizen manipulation by Members of Congress, huge profits for tax lobbyists and lucrative and insulated work for academicians who have built their careers around understanding pieces of the complexity created on Capitol Hill.

A few Members and a few candidates understand that the public is fed up and increasingly, the public has responded by gravitating to these leaders--and to this idea. With $22 million of research proving that it is progressive, revenue neutral, far more simple and fair and "good medicine" for the damage the income tax system has caused our economy, people like the FairTax. They also like those politicians who turn their back on the self-dealing of the political elite who created and feed upon the tax system we now have.

Understanding public sentiment is the beginning of more constructive policies that actually address the things that average Americans care about. It is also a good way to rise in the polls although it is described here by Mr. Pethokoukis as a "populist" stain that is somehow undesirable. The disconnect between elected officials and the public is nowhere more obvious than in the universally despised tax code. This is something the public easily understands and something which most pundits cannot seem to grasp--especially those in and near the Capitol.

Ken Hoagland of TX @ Jan 03, 2008 17:08:47 PM