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Texas Gov. Rick Perry tonight, in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, previewed his tax and spending plan, officially called the “cut, balance and grow” plan, which aims to revamp the tax code, balance the budget, reform entitlement programs and create jobs. “The folks in Washington might not like to hear it, but the plain truth is the U.S. government spends too much. Taxes are too high, too complex, and too riddled with special interest loopholes. And our expensive entitlement system is unsustainable in the long run,” Perry wrote in the Wall Street Journal. “Without significant change quickly, our...

Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry unveiled a sweeping economic agenda Monday highlighted by a plan to level a voluntary 20 percent “flat tax” on all taxpayers who will accept it in place of what they’re paying now.

We are finally starting to get the details about Texas Gov. Rick Perry's flat tax plan to be unveiled formally on Tuesday. Perry insiders confirm that the flat tax will have a rate of 20%, and tax filers will be able to choose between the flat tax and the current code. This means that workers won't "be forced into the flat tax if they like the current system," a Perry advisor tells me. It would also include a standard deduction of $12,500 for each person in the household. Mr. Perry said during the last GOP presidential debate that he would...

Perry to Propose Optional Flat Income Tax of 20% Carl Cameron October 24, 2011 Texas Governor Rick Perry is formally unveiling his flat tax proposal Tuesday in South Carolina. His campaign hopes the plan will gain traction with people who are fed up with the current tax system. Sources tell Fox News it will be an optional 20% flat income tax with a $12,500.00 deduction per individual, per household. Taxpayers may otherwise choose to keep paying under existing IRS code.

There's more news than just a new tax plan coming out of Rick Perry's presidential campaign this week. In addition to his highly anticipated flat tax proposal to be announced tomorrow, the Texas governor and former front runner in the GOP presidential sweepstakes is shaking up his campaign staff big time.

The Rise of Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 and other Republican plans show the nation is hungry for a flat tax The nightmare on Main Street -- the federal income tax code -- is ending, which is fantastic news for our beleaguered economy. Dramatically simplifying this monstrosity would unleash a powerful wave of prosperity and job creation. Thankfully in 2012 we will get a mandate to make this happen. Presidential contender Herman Cain vaulted to the head of the Republican pack when he proposed his 9-9-9 plan -- a flat 9% income tax, corporate tax and national sales tax. Even better, Texas...

FreedomWorks Chairman and former House Majority Leader Dick Armey led the fight for the flat tax on Capitol Hill in the 1990’s. FreedomWorks, previously known as Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE), stood with Armey and his efforts to repeal today’s complicated income tax system. CSE even embarked on a nationwide Scrap the Code tour to generate support for overhauling the tax code. With the rise of the Tea Party movement, the flat tax has a greater chance of passing this time around. The flat tax is gaining steam again with at least one major presidential candidate and congressional leaders...

Please go to the link to see a video interview of Steve Forbes' endorsement of Rick Perry for POTUS and hear a glimpse of what The Perry Plan offers and what that will mean to America.

Two-time presidential candidate Steve Forbes endorsed Texas Gov. Rick Perry's presidential bid — and his campaign's flat tax — in an interview on Fox News. Forbes said Perry's plan will have "a very low rate, with great, generous exemptions for adults and for children," adding it would also lower the corporate tax rate. Businessman Herman Cain has said he is modeling his 9-9-9 plan on Forbes' flat tax principles — though according to a Forbes spokesman, Cain and Forbes have never discussed the plan. Forbes said he believes Perry's plan will be more appealing than Cain's because it does not...

The nightmare on Main Street -- the federal income tax code -- is ending, which is fantastic news for our beleaguered economy. Dramatically simplifying this monstrosity would unleash a powerful wave of prosperity and job creation. Thankfully in 2012 we will get a mandate to make this happen. Presidential contender Herman Cain vaulted to the head of the Republican pack when he proposed his 9-9-9 plan -- a flat 9% income tax, corporate tax and national sales tax. Even better, Texas Gov. Rick Perry will, in a few days, unveil his version of a flat tax, a concept that I...

Herman Cain’s bizarre 9-9-9 plan would replace much of the current tax code with a 9 percent individual income tax and a 9 percent sales tax. He calls it a “flat tax.” Next week Rick Perry is set to announce his own version of a flat tax. Former House majority leader Dick Armey – now chairman of Freedom Works, a major backer of the Tea Party funded by the Koch Brothers and other portly felines (I didn’t say “fat cats”) says that will give Perry “a big boost.” Steve Forbes, one of America’s richest billionaires, who’s on the board of...

The latest Gallup poll pegs President Obama’s approval at a new low of 41 percent. That adds to the thought that the winner of the GOP presidential-primary sweepstakes is going to be the next president. And inside that Republican contest, the policy pendulum is swinging toward pro-growth, flat-tax reform. A new agenda. With Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan and the announcement of a Steve Forbes-type flat tax from Gov. Rick Perry, the GOP flat-tax-reform competition is dominating the headline news. The handwriting is now on the wall. A huge part of the 2012 campaign will be pro-growth tax reform versus “fairness,”...

"Rick Perry -- now coming out with, really embracing Steve Forbes' flat tax idea -- that's going to gain momentum. I look forward to hearing more of the details," she said. "In fact, when I heard that Rick Perry was embracing of Steve Forbes' idea, I went into my garage and dug out an old book from 1999 that Steve Forbes had written. ......Many aspects of it make so much sense - - about the freedom to choose - taxpayer how to file your taxes …..choose a simpler, fairer flat tax…..many of the aspects of it make so much sense."....

[snip] “Any flattening of the tax rates would have distributional consequences across income classes,” wrote CRS economics specialist Jane Gravelle. Of course, to many flat tax proponents, that is part of the point of such a system. Nobel prize-winning economist Milton Friedman, the modern father of the flat tax, challenged progressive taxation as inherently unfair. After all, even under a flat tax, the wealthy pay more, as they have more income, noted Friedman. To increase the percentage of their burden is to use the tax system as a means to redistribute income, in his view. “This seems a clear case...

Cain 37% Romney 27% Ron Paul 12% Perry 6% 86% say they're somewhat or very satisfied with the current GOP field. Univ of Iowa Poll Press Release 102111

Rick Perry will roll out his new plan for tax reform that adopts the flat tax, a concept most associated with Steve Forbes’ presidential runs in the 1990s and still a favorite among fiscal conservatives. Not surprisingly, Forbes himself believes that this will shake up the presidential race and breathe new life into Perry’s campaign: Steve Forbes, whose flat tax plan helped make him an unlikely contender for the Republican presidential nomination 15 years ago, is praising a new version of the idea from Rick Perry. And Forbes, who says he helped devise Perry’s plan, left little doubt that he’ll...

Tax Reform: His campaign flagging, GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry is about to unveil what he hopes will be a game-changer: a flat tax. Whether it works for him or not, we're glad to see this bold idea part of the mix. We like Herman Cain a lot. But his 9-9-9 tax plan, not so much. Perry, no doubt trying to recoup some of his lost support, will unveil a flat tax proposal on Tuesday as a counter-salvo to Cain's popular idea. Count us among the intrigued. Sure, as the cliche goes, the devil is in the details. We don't...

Rick Perry gave a preview of his tax plan to the Western Leadership Conference in Las Vegas Wednesday ahead of its official unveiling next week. Perry said his plan will center on a complete overhaul of the tax code - a move he says will create jobs and jumpstart economic growth. "It starts with scrapping the three million words of the current tax code, and starting over with something much simpler: a flat tax," Perry said. In his remarks, Perry took a dig a Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, who came under fire in 2009 for failing to pay self-employment taxes...

Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s planned embrace of a flat tax proposal to address the nation’s ongoing economic woes amounts to a major political gamble on which the fate of his presidential bid could rest...... It’s the simplicity of the flat tax that makes it so politically appealing. Nearly all Americans — but especially Republicans — are fed up with the oftentimes baffling complexity of the current tax code and yearn for something better. The idea of wiping out the entire tax code then in favor of a single tax bracket appeals to most peoples’ common sense. And, politically, it’s far...

Rick Perry's embrace of a flat tax makes the tough-talking Texas governor the unlikely political heir to Steve Forbes, the nerdy publisher and erstwhile presidential candidate. Mr. Forbes, who ran in 1996 and 2000 and now is advising the Perry camp, said that the "concept remains the same" as his own flat tax plan from the 1990s.