YEAH, LIKE THAT WORKED GREAT

(h/t Matt at Think Progress)

The Tax Cons just can't give up on bad ideas. I noted before that the 1981 tax cuts were a disaster but that doesn't stop True Believers from championing another version of them.

McCain Changes Tack on Taxes
REAL TIME ECONOMICS
Wall Street Journal
August 27, 2008, 12:16 pm

Sen. John McCain hasn’t always been a hero of conservatives when it comes to tax cuts. But by adopting proposals from conservative, antitax voices in his party as his own, McCain has helped to silence erstwhile critics on the right.

A prime example is a McCain proposal to let taxpayers choose between the current tax system and an optional flat-tax with a maximum top rate of 25%. Such an optional flat-tax was originally conceived by Stephen Moore, the long-time conservative activist. Moore is now an editorial board member at the Wall Street Journal.

Rep. Paul Ryan, the senior Republican on the House Budget Committee and lead sponsor of the plan, discussed it with McCain chief economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin on several occasions before McCain embraced an optional flat-tax in an economic speech in April.

McCain backs the proposal conceptually, but hasn’t signed on to all the details of the Ryan plan, according to a campaign spokesman. “The Ryan tax plan is the Kemp-Roth plan for the next 20 years. That’s where the movement is going,” said Grover Norquist, President of Americans for Tax Reform. He was referring to the plan from then-Rep. Jack Kemp and Sen. William Roth, that led to landmark 1981 tax cut legislation.