The Flat Tax Fraud: Robert Reich joins the fray

We have been saying for years that the Flat Tax proposals are a wolf in sheep's clothing: sold on the basis of "simplifying" tax codes they are nothing more nor less than a blatant exercise in reducing tax contributions by rich people and increased tax contributions by poor people. With Republican Party candidates for the 2012 US presidential campaign coming out in favour of Flat Taxes, Robert Reich argues the case for strengthening progressive taxation:

Herman Cain’s bizarre 9-9-9 plan would replace much of the current tax code with a 9 percent individual income tax and a 9 percent sales tax. He calls it a “flat tax.”

Next week Rick Perry is set to announce his own version of a flat tax. Former House majority leader Dick Armey – now chairman of Freedom Works, a major backer of the Tea Party funded by the Koch Brothers and other portly felines (I didn’t say “fat cats”) — predicts this will give Perry “a big boost.” Steve Forbes, one of America’s richest billionaires, who’s on the board of the Freedom Works foundation, is delighted. He’s been pushing the flat tax for years.

The flat tax is a fraud. It raises taxes on the poor and lowers them on the rich.

Read on here.