‘It would be rocket fuel for the U.S. economy’
The Big Idea is a series that asks top lawmakers and figures to discuss their moonshot — what’s the one proposal, if politics and polls and even price tag were not an issue, they’d implement to change the country for the better?
Stephen Moore, a member of President Trump’s economic recovery task force and an economist at FreedomWorks, has a bold idea for how to reinvigorate the economy: abolish the federal income tax, and replace it with a national sales tax.
On the face of it, it may seem like a radical notion especially since essentially all Americans nowadays have grown up having a chunk of their income pulled out by the IRS every year. But Moore notes that the income tax is a relatively new invention in the U.S. — having only been introduced in the early 20th century.
On the state level, having a sales tax and no income tax is hardly novel, with a number of states having exactly this set-up. But doing so nationally would mark a radical upheaval of the current tax system, and at a time when the U.S. is spending trillions of dollars on stimulus — although Moore maintains it could raise more revenue than the current system.
Whether such an idea would find bipartisan support is uncertain — presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden has called for increasing income taxes on high earners — but Moore believes that, at a time when the economy needs stimulating, his plan would be “rocket fuel.”
Source: Adam Shaw | Fox News
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