Giuliani, Forbes and a Flat Tax
Rudolph W. Giuliani accepted the endorsement of Steve Forbes yesterday and embraced Mr. Forbes’s signature issue, saying he liked the idea of a flat tax — something Mr. Giuliani denounced when Mr. Forbes was running for president.
If there were no federal income tax, “maybe I’d suggest not doing it at all, but if we were going to do it, a flat tax would make a lot of sense,” Mr. Giuliani, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, said yesterday, standing beside Mr. Forbes at the Nasdaq MarketSite in Times Square in New York. But he said it was not clear whether dissolving the current system, so ingrained in the economy, would be feasible.
Giuliani was my guy anyway, for non-economic reasons, but this is exactly the sort of thing my cold little conservative heart likes to hear.
What kind of flat tax do you favor? The one that Forbes spoke of would have left all investment income untaxed — which would essentially exempt rich people from taxation.
By the way, this is awfully amusing given that Giuliani fought hard to keep the “commuter tax” — a city income tax imposed on people who work in New York City and don’t live in New York City.