Walking on Water: How to Do It (Estonian PM on flat tax)

The Brussels Journal ^ | Sat, 2005-08-27 | Paul Belien

[Smile-n-Win]

The man who sparked the flat tax revolution is former Estonian Prime Minister Mart Laar. He governed his country from 1992 to 1995 and from 1999 to 2002. When the historian became Prime Minister in 1992 at the age of 32 he knew nothing about economy. Laar’s area of expertise were Europe’s 19th-century national movements. “It is very fortunate that I was not an economist,” he says. “I had read only one book on economics – Milton Friedman’s “Free to Choose.” I was so ignorant at the time that I thought that what Friedman wrote about the benefits of privatisation, the flat tax and the abolition of all customs rights, was the result of economic reforms that had been put into practice in the West. It seemed common sense to me and, as I thought it had already been done everywhere, I simply introduced it in Estonia, despite warnings from Estonian economists that it could not be done. They said it was as impossible as walking on water. We did it: we just walked on the water because we did not know that it was impossible.”

[wolfpat]

Free Market Capitalism....It works every time it's tried.

[Ma3lst0rm]

I love it! This is the kind of man we need not the "cowards" that hide behind the dresses of their press secretaries and talk like hippies "you know man we need freedom and just have to get along and you know Islam is just such a wonderful religion...". I'm getting so sick of it.

[KarlInOhio]

PB: You know that the European Union would like to harmonise taxation.

ML: Oh, actually they do not, or rather if some might want to do so, they will fail. We have won this debate. Clearly it will not happen in Europe. That I think is good news for the whole of Europe. Because when there is tax competition, taxes go down. I can guarantee you that taxes will go down not only in central and Eastern Europe, but very soon also in the Baltic Sea area. Not only in the new member states along the Baltic, but also in Finland, in Sweden, in Denmark. There is no other option left for them.

The dentists in the socialist countries in Europe are working overtime trying to solve all the gritting and grinding of teeth from this type of comment.