Tax reform

Read this in today's Wall Street Journal:

It is, for many Western Europeans and Americans, a public-policy heresy: the flat tax, a single rate all taxpayers, rich or poor, pay on income. But across the struggling economies of Europe, momentum is building for flat taxes, or at the very least, lower and simpler taxes.

Last week, advisers to the Dutch Parliament recommended a flat tax on personal income to boost growth and get more people working. In Italy, weathering a public-debt crisis and a flailing economy, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's chief economic adviser advocates a flat tax to increase revenue and fight tax evasion by abolishing tricky exemptions and loopholes and reducing off-the-book employment that can result when taxes are too high. Opposition parties in the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom are pushing similar ideas, while Spain and Greece have already offered plans to simplify and cut.

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...Estonia was the first European nation to adopt a flat tax, in 1994, quickly followed by Latvia and Lithuania. Last year Slovakia and this year Romania have adopted low flat-tax rates that are helping them grow quickly and undercut so-called Old Europe economies. Estonia's gross domestic product, for example, grew 6.3% on average in the three years after it made the move, compared with shrinking 8.4% in the three years before. With many of these countries now in the European Union, it is putting pressure on the more-established, more-sluggish western European economies to rethink their tax systems: even if it doesn't result in a full-fledged pure flat tax, these countries are at least headed in this direction.

Another interesting piece that I read today was John Fund's column that basically said conservatives are in near full revolt due to overspending and other recent actions by the Bush White House. And that was before Bush announced his pick of Harriett Miers for the Supreme Court.

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Now, on Nov. 1 the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform is scheduled to release its report on how to reform the nation's tax code. This is the perfect opportunity to push for a flat tax -- and the best way to get his presidency back on track by re-energizing the base. Let the Miers nomination wither, dump the Medicare prescription drug benefit and cut spending and all will be forgiven. If Bush does none of the above he will be persona non grata with conservatives and it will be a long three years.