Prometheus 6

Huckabee's plan excites a lot of people, especially those too young to remember countless other tax-reform dreams that failed to get anywhere.

Huckabee vs.income taxes? It's no contest
Clarence Page
December 16, 2007

Mike Huckabee wants to put my pal Harry out of business.

Harry does my taxes. Huckabee wants to make tax preparers obsolete by getting rid of the federal income tax. He'll get rid of the IRS too, if he can.

On that issue, the Arkansas governor belongs to a mighty large club. Few Republican presidential candidates ever went broke calling for tax cuts. Some, like Gov. Huck, just take it to a further extreme.

Now that he is surging in the polls, people are beginning to take seriously what he has to say. It turns out, despite all of the attention that the former Baptist minister's religious beliefs, social conscience and friendly teddy-bear personality have received, his war on the income tax is a major reason for his surge.

Essentially, he's proposing to replace virtually all federal taxes with a consumption tax. Instead of taxing what you earn, the government would tax what you spend.

No income tax? Hey, sounds good to me. Tax time is so complicated in this country that about 60 percent of filers rely on professionals like Harry to do their returns, according to President Bush's 2005 tax reform advisory panel. But Harry's not worried.

"The candidates always talk a good game," he says. "And we're busier than ever in this office."

Harry's been doing other people's taxes for more than 30 years. He's survived privatizers, downsizers, Ronald Reagan and TurboTax. He's not worried about the guy from the Razorback State whose name sounds like a family restaurant chain.