A Republican Presidential Litmus Test?
During the 1980 presidential campaign, Ronald Reagan famously championed a bold tax reform featuring inflation-indexed lower rates and accelerated asset depreciation to spur private investment and shake off the Carter malaise. Voters took notice of Reagan’s unique message and backed him, first in the primaries and then, in a late surge, against the incumbent. The Kemp-Roth proposal became the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981, igniting robust economic growth immediately after the lower rates were fully phased in.
Today’s fiscal woes are considerably more comprehensive. We face stubbornly low growth, high unemployment and a globally uncompetitive tax code, plus unsustainable deficits, record federal spending and a looming entitlement cliff. Paul Ryan’s Roadmap is a credible effort to stave off looming insolvency, but fails to address our tax system, Social Security or the proper role of the federal government under the Constitution.
We need to get government back in its box and get the economy growing again.
Enter the Heritage Foundation with today’s release of Saving the American Dream: The Heritage Plan to Fix the Debt, Cut Spending, and Restore Prosperity, a comprehensive pro-growth plan to restructure the federal leviathan in a responsible way, maintaining essential services while moving our shining city back atop President Reagan’s hill.
Here are a few encouraging highlights from the plan:
- Revenues and spending balance at 18.5% of GDP in just 10 years
- Obamacare is repealed and patient-centered health insurance reform enacted
- Medicare and Social Security are redesigned to serve senior citizens on a sustainable basis
- A true flat tax replaces today’s income and payroll taxes
- Savings are not taxed until spent
- The corporate tax code is reformed to increase global competitiveness
I think Heritage has just provided us a handy way of separating Reagan's heir from business-as-usual presidential contenders. What do you think?
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Comments :
Oct '10
Re: A Republican Presidential Litmus Test?
Don't you think this would kill the candidacy of anyone seeking the nomination? It would be so easy for the Democrats to demagogue it, and we don't have any Reagans in the running (not this time around, anyway).
Jul '10
Re: A Republican Presidential Litmus Test?
Sounds good to me. Unfortunately, looking at those graphs will make most Americans' eyes glaze over and they'll switch to Dancing With the Stars.
The message that needs to go out is: If you're over 55, nothing changes. If you're younger, our plan will save you from disaster.
Edited on May 10, 2011 at 5:03pmRe: A Republican Presidential Litmus Test?
Kenneth, the graph at the left scares the bejeebers out of me. I hope an adult can take the stage, grab the microphone and contrast a future of job growth, prosperity and continued global leadership against, say, Greece.
It should be pretty straightforward, but when the electorate rejects Obama's socialist world view, what replaces it?
I am encouraged on this last point: Now we have a carefully constructed, officially scored legislative plan that can put us back on track as a nation, and incidentally make Ryan's plan seem like a centrist compromise.
May '10
Re: A Republican Presidential Litmus Test?
In hindsight, one of Reagan's great errors was not making Jack Kemp his VP, setting him up to be president in '89 and thereby continuing the momentum into the '90's.
That immediate post-Cold War era so needed a young, likable go-getter making the small-gov't case -- to sort of cement or ratify the change in the national mindset in the '80's -- and Kemp would have been perfect.
Nov '10
Re: A Republican Presidential Litmus Test?
Kenneth is right. There is nothing wrong with the plans we have now; it's just a matter of reassuring worried seniors, most of whom planned their retirements around Social Security and Medicare, that they're not going to get the rug pulled out from under them.
That said, there's nothing wrong with Heritage's plan either. It's good to have multiple options on the table, but I refuse to make adherence to any one specific plan into a "litmus test."