Flat

Michael Kinsley, in the Los Angeles Times:

THE U.S. TAX CODEIS HIDEOUSLY and needlessly complex. People say they want something simpler. Now two Republican presidential candidates are probably committing political suicide by offering people what they say they want.

The central gimmick of Fred Thompson's recently announced tax plan is to offer people a choice. They can pay taxes under the current rules -- with some juicy new breaks added from the big- and small-businesses wish lists -- or they can pay a so-called flat tax, with lower rates and fewer deductions. So anyone who wants a simpler tax code could have one. But for people who get a lot of deductions now, the simpler tax would be a higher tax. How many people, do you suppose, would choose simplicity over complexity, even if simplicity would cost them more? My bet: approximately zero.

Like most flat-tax advocates over the years, Thompson puts a thumb on the scale by combining flatness with a large tax cut. The Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation figures that Thompson's plan would fall a mere $2.5-trillion short of revenue over the next decade, compared with the current system. If you can borrow $2.5 trillion, it makes it easy to arrange for more people to see their taxes go down than up if they choose the flat-tax alternative.

But this has nothing to do with simplifying the system. If you don't care how much debt you run up, you can give everyone a tax cut without bothering about simplification. You can stop collecting tax at all! That would be nice and simple.

The New Theocrats

Richard Cohen in the Washington Post:

What could be called "The Huckabee Moment" occurred Sunday morning when ABC's George Stephanopoulos asked the former Arkansas governor, suddenly and ominously the front-runner in Iowa's GOP contest, whether Mitt Romney is a Christian. Mike Huckabee knew precisely what was being asked of him, and he also knew, because he is a preacher, what the right -- not the clever, mind you -- answer should be. But Huckabee merely smiled that wonderful smile of his and punted. This, with apologies to George W. Bush, is the soft demagoguery of low expectations.

Until just recently, the expectations have indeed been low for Huckabee. He is more famous for losing more than 100 pounds than for any towering political accomplishment. But he is an ordained Baptist minister, and Romney is a Mormon -- a member of a church that some conservative Christians consider heretical. Huckabee has presented himself as the un-Mormon.

Pardon me for saying so, but that is the chief difference between the two. On about all the social issues you can name -- abortion, stem cells, gun control -- Huckabee and Romney are in sync. So their religious differences are not about morality. They are about belief -- religious belief, precisely the issue that is not supposed to matter in this country. Huckabee, though, clearly thinks it ought to.