Stephen Moore’s Case for a Complete Flat Tax

The flat tax plans of Rand Paul and Ted Cruz would eliminate the payroll tax and corporate taxes—entirely—writes Stephen Moore in NRO. Most economists would agree that their plans are consumption-based tax plans that use the proper base for taxing business output. Each candidate’s proposed flat tax plan may not be perfect, but they are all good, Mr. Moore writes.

There are probably about a dozen different ways to craft a flat tax, everything from the 9-9-9 plan devised by Herman Cain to the national sales tax to the Paul and Cruz plans. They are variations on the same theme, and conservatives should be for whichever one of them is politically most salable and can pass. A circular firing squad on the right by those who only want their plan is counterproductive.

Mr. Moore explains why a flat tax mentality of “my way or the highway” benefits only the Left, and why he and Arthur Laffer in Return to Prosperity endorse what they call the “Complete Flat Tax.”