Romney, Giuliani WRONG on FairTax – Brownback in denial

The ABC News GOP Primary debate just concluded, and it was a victory for the FairTax.  As such it was also a victory for Mike Huckabee who was recognized as being a leader on this most important issue.  The FairTax was described in brief, it's logo was placed on the screen, and Huckabee (in the short period of time he had) brought up several important points regarding our obsolete tax code.

Two candidates, however, almost embarrassed themselves with misunderstandings and misstatements concerning the FairTax. 

Romney stated that he didn't think the FairTax was "that good", referring to Huckabee's strong endorsement.  He made a bogus statement concerning the construction industry which went roughly "if you charge a 23% sales tax on a new home, but not an old one, the construction industry will be hurt because people won't build new homes."  That's not a direct quote, but it's close enough.  How misguided is that?!  Romney fails to recognize that the beauty of the FairTax is that it is only charged once, at the final retail sale of a finished product.  After the FairTax is added to the price of a new home, it will be roughly equal in cost to an existing home which was created under a system that taxed every single item and labor cost that went into that construction.  The FairTax removes those and brings the cost down.  Clearly the Governor has at least a rudimentary understanding of the bill he is deriding?

Speaking of "RUDImentary", Guiliani thought that enacting the FairTax would be too difficult?  What's difficult is the complex national embarrassment of a tax code we have now.  Fixing it, if that is even possible, would be tremendously more difficult than enacting the FairTax.  Guiliani also ignorantly posed the question, "We still need an IRS, don't we?  Who collects the FairTax?"  Sir, existing state sales tax collection agencies collect it.  You don't need a huge federal bureaucracy to accomplish what the states can do by changing one number in their existing revenue generation systems.  This isn't rocket science.

Brownback, in supporting a Flat Tax, is simply in denial that the momentum in this country is for the FairTax.  The FairTax has 63 cosponsors.  The Flat Tax has, I believe, four.  I don't know what Brownback's aim is here, but he clearly isn't on the side of the most thoroughly researched tax replacement alternative before Congress today.

Major points for Huckabee on this issue.

Please vote for him in this poll:  www.abcnews.com/politics