Ben Carson Unable to to Answer Simple Questions about his Tax Plan
Source: Think Progress
Dr. Ben Carson, now a Republican presidential candidate, has long proposed a flat tax for the country, citing the Bibles tithing as his inspiration. As he reiterated Sunday morning on Fox News Sunday, he supports the idea of a proportional tax, one in which you pay according to your ability. A flat tax would require everybody in the country to pay the same percentage of their income as tax, regardless of how much or how little they make, and most variations include eliminating deductions and loopholes. Carson thinks its condescending to suggest its not fair that poor people cant afford to pay their share because poor people have pride, too and dont want to be just taken care of.
But on Sunday, host Chris Wallace confronted Carson with tax experts, who found that to raise the same amount of revenue the federal government currently takes in, the government would have to impose a 20 percent tax across the board. (The Tax Policy Center argues it would have to be at least 25 percent.) Middle incomes would get a tax hike and wealthy families would get a tax cut, Wallace explained. Carson countered that he simply didnt agree with that assessment. He then admitted that according to the economists hes consulted, if loopholes and deductions are eliminated, it would still have to be between 10 and 15 percent but it wouldnt be 20 percent.
Wallace followed up by asking about low-income families, who not only dont pay taxes, but usually receive an earned income tax credit instead. Now youll have them pay 10 to 15 percent of income they have or 20 percent if my experts are right. A lot of independent studies say the people that make like bandits in this are the wealthy.
Carson could only then offer a vague explanation about how his tax plan is part of an overall complex program that involves reorienting the way we do things in government. The candidate said he wants to run the government more like a business instead of this great inefficient behemoth we have right now, including generating revenue by utilizing our energy resources. Part of his plan also includes revamping corporate taxes and bringing in money thats overseas by giving a tax holiday, claiming that would bring in $2 trillion right there.
Read more: http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/05/10/3657141/ben-carson-flat-tax/
No one ever expected Republicans to follow any logical line of thought.
MrScorpio
(73,630 posts)To them, not knowing that your entire faith-based belief system is nothing more than a load of malarky puts you at an advantage.
Unfortunately, it only makes them fight against the reality-based world just that much harder.
Plucketeer
(12,882 posts)the sad thing is, these fantasies resonate with so much of our dim-witted, non-analytical populace. Hell, if a simple majority of Americans could think an figure out truths, the GOP wouldn't exist!
radhika
(1,008 posts)As we listen to Carson more and more, free form responses, it gets eerier. Jacob and Esau ties to Islam, slavery, anti-healthcare etc. He's one seriously strange dude, with questions as to his reality space. But apparently, his surgical work was excellent in a rare and challenging specialty.
What I wonder about is this: patients and families often get to know the surgeon over many months. Sharing their fears with him, putting their lives and futures in his hand. Looking to him for confidence and support.
What was it like interacting with him, professionally. Was he that visible a wing-but crazy?
Mz Pip
(27,439 posts)He retired pretty early, 51 IIRC.
I suppose it's not uncommon for someone who is really talented in one field to be arrogant enough to think it makes them qualified to excel in something completely unrelated. As far as I can tell this guy hasn't even been on a city council.
SheilaT
(23,156 posts)" it's not uncommon for someone who is really talented in one field to be arrogant enough to think it makes them qualified to excel in something completely unrelated."
Doctors are the very worst at this. I don't understand, but there's something about becoming a doctor that makes a person think he's totally qualified in everything else. Most of the rest of us get it that just because we know a lot about astrophysics or road repair or inpatient registration, we don't know everything else. But doctors? They somehow think that becoming a physician means they magically know everything else about the universe.
BrotherIvan
(9,126 posts)That does describe what I've been unable to name in many people these days. I think because the news is propaganda now, facts and science and logic have been replaced by opinion and religion. It's off-putting and bizarre.
erronis
(15,237 posts)I also like "reality space" and hope I don't live in my own little bubble. Wish I could but reality gets in the way.
Reminds me a bit of old GHWB (remember the shrub's old man?) who had no f'in idea of how much milk cost in the grocery store.
I think every presidential wannabe should have to spend one year just before announcing surviving on minimal wage. No nice meals, no private bedrooms, no personal transport, no extra cash, no steaks, no fish, cruises, etc. Since most of them have sucked at silver nipples all their lives, it is appropriate that they should learn how the other non-0.01% live.
BrotherIvan
(9,126 posts)These are people who think it's no big deal if your job is shipped overseas. Just get another one! They can't even fathom the thought of choosing between food and medicine or being a bright kid who can't go to college. They don't know the depression of living in the inner city with an occupying police force. They don't know the mounting fear and anger. They only know their wine and dine world. Why do you think they're always laughing at that travesty, the Correspondent's Dinner? And we all get to watch the footage and titter at them in tuxes and champagne. Isn't it special?
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)It has always made my skin crawl a bit.
BrotherIvan
(9,126 posts)yuck yuck ain't it great to be RICH? Blech.
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)It is not called the opium of the masses for no reason.
justhanginon
(3,290 posts)go back to surgeoning. You don't seem to know what the hell you are talking about when it comes to running a country and we certainly don't need that having suffered thru the Bush years. You need more than a big ego to be taken seriously as a candidate.
question everything
(47,468 posts)I have to wonder how good it was in the past. He made his fame by separating conjoined twins in the head - this is great. But what else has he done?
And, at 51, I would not trust his precision in operating on babies. Yes, I know, there probably are excellent surgeons in their 50s and 60s, but human nature puts the odds against it.
bravenak
(34,648 posts)And a terrible politician and an angry man with a violent past. Any man who stabs a friend as a teen is pretty angry and violent. I think stabbing a dude should disqualify him. I have no idea why it doesn't.
Adsos Letter
(19,459 posts)It's the Andrew Jackson style in American politics.
bravenak
(34,648 posts)Cryptoad
(8,254 posts)how Jesus spoke several times about the relative value of money to a person's wealth, making a flat tax the most un-Christain tax of all taxes.
Blue_Adept
(6,399 posts)Flat and simple.
procon
(15,805 posts)I guess that's the only comparison that fits the simple minded narrative voters are able to grasp. Just like a flat tax sounds so American, so fair and equal for everyone... if you don't look past the bunting and sparklers.
BumRushDaShow
(128,834 posts)There are simply not enough adequate emoticons to even get close to reflecting the moldy word salad that is his response.
Ezlivin
(8,153 posts)That should be his stock answer from now on.
red dog 1
(27,792 posts)Even William Shatner would make a better POTUS than Ben Carson
Coventina
(27,101 posts)Joe Chi Minh
(15,229 posts)who pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
Heck, the gross injustice of a flat tax is anything but rocket-science. It has to be, if I can understand it. And he's arguing with the experts about the net effect of it on the poorer folk! 'Snake-oil salesman' doesn't begin to convey this guy's disingenuous waffle.
thesquanderer
(11,986 posts)If you exempt the first $50k (for example) of someone's income, but just have a single flat rate above that with absolutely no deductions, then you have the benefits of simplicity/transparency in the tax system, without hurting low income people.
7962
(11,841 posts)Joe Chi Minh
(15,229 posts)Although once initiated, they could then reduced the threshold again with impunity for a long time; justifying it n the grounds of inflation, while exaggerating it, then excusing it as, in part, a little anticipatory, as well. Just so they didn't have to do it too often!
But lower-paid workers should not have to pay income tax. Adam Smith, the right wing's putative capitalist guru, recommended that payments should be proportionate to income, in which case the rich would probably be astronomically higher tax.
SamKnause
(13,091 posts)as Herman 999.
valerief
(53,235 posts)alterfurz
(2,474 posts)"America has had an idiot president, and then a black president--now it's time for an idiot black president!"
TheDebbieDee
(11,119 posts)I hope you don't mind if I borrow your campaign pitch - it's HI-larious!
Tom Ripley
(4,945 posts)red dog 1
(27,792 posts)just ask President Forbes.
cosmicone
(11,014 posts)At least Herman Cain's 9 plan was logically better sounding.
progree
(10,901 posts)(Not that Reagan believed what he just said, more like talking out of both sides of his mouth. Or by then the dementia had taken hold and he didn't know WTF he was talking about. And bus drivers paying 10%? Payroll tax (which Reagan drastically raised) alone comes to nearly that, not counting the employer's share - which most economists think is effectively mostly paid for by employees in lower wages)
jorgebob28
(22 posts)Ben Carson Unable to to Answer Simple Questions
Gothmog
(145,126 posts)This tax plan is stupid
jmowreader
(50,553 posts)I'm assuming that if Corporation A brought money from their overseas operations into the US under the current tax regime, it would be hit with a 35 percent levy - $350,000 per million. And further, let's assume these "tax holidays" will reduce the rate on it to 17.5 percent, which would be half off.
Anyone who's even slightly competent at burying profits outside the country can find a place that won't tax it.
Given the choice between paying $175,000 per million on your profits and paying nothing, which would you choose?
7962
(11,841 posts)The US has the highest corp tax rate in the world, but allows deductions. They also tax overseas money that has already been taxed and no other country does that.
Drop the deductions, drop the rate, and the money will come back. And it would also stop the GEs who pay nothing
lastlib
(23,208 posts)and he calls it a simpler system? No just another way of f*cking over the poor, and giving more to the rich.
erpowers
(9,350 posts)It would have been nice if Think Progress would have posted a video of the interview. It would have been good to be able to watch the full video in order to see everything Dr. Ben Carson had to say. The article says he is open to a proportional tax system, but has called for a flat tax system. I would have like to see if he explained that contradiction. It would have also been helpful to see his full explanation concerning Wallace's question about the idea that a flat tax would increase taxes for some middle class families.
yellowcanine
(35,699 posts)A "Tax Holiday" normally means no taxes are collected for a period of time. It means no taxes are collected, let alone 2 trillion dollars.
I think he means "tax amnesty" meaning taxes owed are forgiven with the understanding that from now on the individual/company pays what is due. Hard to see how it would raise 2 trillion. Maybe he means negotiating partial payment of past due taxes with the agreement of no prosecution. Again, doubtful there is anything close to $2 trillion there. Who knows what the dumb shit means, and he is a dumb shit when it comes to tax policy.
Adsos Letter
(19,459 posts)Since we're talking about basing tax policy on the OT?
Cha
(297,137 posts)JustABozoOnThisBus
(23,338 posts)... it's harder than that.
Tom Ripley
(4,945 posts)LibertyLover
(4,788 posts)He was a neurosurgeon on staff at Johns Hopkins, not a Fortune 500 CEO. He'd run the US into the ground.
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)first car, first home, all food, first phone, utilities on that first home tax free.
Coventina
(27,101 posts)Rafale
(291 posts)Perhaps the truth is that he didn't write the tax plan. It was handed to him for cash. Ask yourself who the cash is from?
Monk06
(7,675 posts)Companies with overseas assets that are not taxed now and in some cases companies get $100s of Millions in tax rebates, are going to expose those assets to US taxes because Carson will promise them a tax holiday.
They are on tax permanent vacation right now !!
The guy is a complete moron.
rogerashton
(3,920 posts)It doesn't mention income at all. It seems to say that each should give 10% of her wealth. Would Carson agree to a proportionate wealth tax? I would.
http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Bible-Verses-About-Giving-10-Percent/
Now, to be fair, these writings stem from a time when a large proportion of wealth was stored food, which would fluctuate over the year, so the distinction of wealth from income is a little less clear.