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Thanks for posting the “scorecard”.

Seems the frontrunners want to avoid it, but those with everything to gain by taking a risk go for it? Perhaps frontrunners do not want to spend time defending it? That will change when they realize that defending the status quo is impossible and unacceptable.

That will be something to look for a change in. Shoot, I remember when pols hadn’t even heard of any reform!

It's almost frightening just how pervasive the current tax code has become in our daily lives. It's gotten so big that a large part of the electorate treats it like a beaten wife treats her husband. It robs, abuses, and oppresses them at every turn, and yet it is all they know, so they're too afraid to get rid of it for something else.

This is why the top candidates distance themselves from the FairTax. They are too timid to force the voters to face the fears that will go with any radical tax reform proposal. That would require something called "leadership", and I guess we just can't expect that out of our Presidential candidates anymore.

I'm not saying they have to push my preferred proposal, the FairTax, though I would certainly rather they did. The problem is that none of the candidates with a serious chance of being nominated propose any real, specific tax reform. Giuliani and Romney just want to tinker with the current code, get rid of a couple taxes, and lower some marginal rates. McCain claims to be in favor of tax reform, and even said he would sign the FairTax into law, but he couches his support in such vague terms as "anything that would simplify our tax code", and "a flatter and fairer tax", that he really isn't taking a position at all. Even Fred Thompson, my preferred "candidate", is hedging his bets. If he really was answering the FairTax guy in that video, then that's good news, but he's going to have to do better than two words in a flesh-pressing session if he wants to run on tax reform.

And that's really the problem, isn't it? Politicians have become so emasculated by "triangulation" and sound bite politics that they're completely unwilling to tackle such an obvious problem as that monstrosity known as the U.S. Tax Code. The President is supposed to be Leader of the Free World, not Follower of the Fifty-One Percent.