Tea Party on Tax Reform

FairTax & flat tax: on consumption instead of production

• Both the fair tax and the flat tax are effectively "consumption taxes." In other words, people are taxed for spending money, not earning it.
• Both plans would eliminate the death tax and taxes on capital gains.
• Both plans are single-tax-rate systems that eliminate multiple taxation.
• Both plans would dramatically reduce the time and money Americans spend complying with the current, complicated tax code.

80% oppose taxing the rich, compared to 56% in GOP

Tea Partiers' dread of tax hikes even surpasses the usual level at which Republicans worry about and oppose tax increases. 80% of Tea Partiers oppose raising taxes on Americans making more than $250,000 a year, a number that far exceeds the 56% of non- Tea Party Republicans who are opposed to such levies. Even compared to fellow conservatives, Tea Partiers are especially worried about the political response to the economic downturn--which helps explain why the Tea Party outburst happened when it did.

T.E.A.: Taxed Enough Already

Yet in fact there was much more to talk about. We Republicans, reinforced by the Tea Party and everyone else who could see that Obama-style liberalism was a disaster, spoke strongly on many matters. We were against Obamacare and the bureaucratic takeover of our health-care system. We were against bailing out Wall Street. (Not every Republican but, by now, most.) We were against the "stimulus"--which actually, of course, was a destimulus. We were against the government running the auto industry. We were against cap-and-trade's strange mix of repression and profiteering. We were against green energy fantasies.