Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Giuliani on the Flat Tax   [Ramesh Ponnuru]

On Kudlow's show two days ago: "If we were doing income tax for the first time. In other words, if we were starting off new back at the beginning of the last century, then probably we should go with a—we probably should've gone with a flat tax, maybe two levels of tax, but really simple."

Back in 1996: "The flat tax is not for me." The New York Times reported: "While he has criticized the flat-tax idea before, yesterday was the first time Mr. Giuliani publicly came out against Mr. Forbes's plan. Calling it ‘a mistake,’ the Mayor joined other critics who contend that the plan's elimination of deductions for state and local income taxes would unfairly punish states with high local taxes, like New York, and increase pressure for those states to lower their tax rates.”

A few days later, on Capital Gang, he said that a flat tax "would be a terrible mistake for urban areas, for big states. . . . [Y]ou can't be pulling away some of our economic basis, which rests with state and local taxation and that would be true of any of the big cities, any of the big states. It would really be a disaster. . ."

Does Giuliani still believe that it would be "a disaster" for states and localities to feel pressure to cut their taxes? The tone of his remarks suggests that he has come around on these issues, which is great. But there are plenty of reporters who scourge flip-floppers, and I can't wait to see what they have to say about this.

03/28 10:04 PMShare