Right-wing hostility to Marco Rubio's tax plan shows the GOP is stuck in the past

The Journal is hardly alone among the right’s “supply-side” wing in viewing the Rubio plan as weak tea. “There is a risk that with [Ted] Cruz and [Rand] Paul both talking about a flat tax that Rubio, even though he does some big and important things, might get lost in the clutter,” the Cato Institute’s Daniel Mitchell recently told Politico.

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So what does it take to win the GOP’s tax-cut derby among old-school supply-siders and the new tea partiers? Big tax rate cuts for those at the top, apparently. When Rand Paul announced his White House run earlier this month, his campaign website featured a flat tax with a top 17 percent rate — the lowest top rate since 1916 — that would reduce U.S. tax revenue by $700 billion a year. Paul has since replaced those specifics with a vague promise to deliver “the largest tax cut in American history.” And during his announcement speech, Ted Cruz asked listeners to “imagine a simple flat tax that lets every American file his or her taxes on a postcard.” Back during the 2012 GOP presidential campaign, Rick Perry also proposed the flat tax-postcard combo, which the Tax Policy Center calculated could lose as much as $1 trillion a year in tax revenue, not counting any added economic growth.

Now, it’s one thing for a politician to offer an overly ambitious agenda and then scale back once in office. But these flat tax plans are more fantastical than aspirational. Rubio is smart to avoid them.

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