Texas Gov. Rick Perry unveiled his "tax and spend" plan, officially called his “cut, balance and grow” plan. It is more properly the CUT TAXES for the ruling elite; balance if you can walk a tight rope between poverty on one side and rabid republican reptilians on the other; grow tough and smart or die!"
Rick Perry's 'plan' is just another GOP give-away to the ruling elite which has already CREATED the ruling elite of just 1 percent of the total population --a situtation not unlike that of the U.S. just prior to the crash of '29 and the resulting Great Depression!
The GOP has gotten away with this fraud only because the American educational system has failed to educate people. A flat tax may sound fair but is not! Anyone NOT a member of the ruling elite spends a a much, much larger proportion of their incomes just maintaining a roof over a family and the food to feed them. The poorer they are the larger that percentage.
The ruling elites, by contrast, spend less and less as a percentage of either total wealth or total income on the basic necessities --food, shelter, commuting, et al. In many cases, elites may choose to make of a necessity a luxury.
The best example of this is education where, in Texas, the rich have chosen to marginalize public education. Last time I checked, Texas --under Bush-Perry --had fallen to dead last in high school graduations, beating out the likes of Mississippi or evolution-deniers like Kansas et al.
The elites, for example, need not spend substantially more on mere subsistence which is but a very, very tiny percentage of their total income and wealth! It's a curve! Therefore, any flat tax is unfair to anyone who is not very, very, very rich! A flat tax for the poor means that he/she pays much, much more as a percentage of his after tax income for essentials (housing, food) as do the very, very, very rich who pay the same 'flat percentage' but exponentially decreasing percentages of income for many of the same items purchased by everyone else.
A Flat Tax, therefore, is not really flat because it represents a huge increase in the burden placed upon anyone not a member of the ruling elite!
Rick Perry is either a crook or a moron or both! But he differs very little from every other GOP to have ever hatched from a pod!
Perry is making it all up as he goes. It was not so long ago that Perry attacked Social Security. Now --he claims to have a 'plan' (unfortunately, he has announced no imminent plan to just STFU) Now, Perry not only promises to repeal Obama’s health care plan, he says his plan will stop the “raiding” of the Social Security Trust Fund and allow younger generations to set up personal retirement accounts. He has flip-flopped on Social Security.
In a word, Perry reads the polls and makes the 'necessary' adjustments. He is completely unprincipled and utterly clueless.