Flat Tax or Flat Line?

With the final debate finished, and just over two weeks left for the Presidential candidates to pander to undecided or waffling voters, is there one topic that could create a major upset in the polls to push John McCain into the White House? As I was skimming through different blog sites today, I came across an article on The Huffington Post, the liberal blog, which caught my eye.

The headline, John McCain’s Flat Tax October Surprise by Chris Kelly, a somewhat controversial writer, offered the promise of a great read only to disappoint once I found that Mr. Kelly had elected to hypnotize with unfounded and unsubstantiated reasoning for why McCain would change his tax policy at this time to the Flat Tax, or why Kelly thinks it would not work. He randomly submits that John McCain has “one more trick up his sleeve” and is going to pitch the Flat Tax to voters in October.

While throwing out insulting phrases such as “planning our terror” and “Vice President Miss Wasilla,” he gives two weak reasons that he “thinks” John McCain would implement this plan now: 1) Joe the Plumber hates the idea of progressive taxation and 2) Obama possibly would repeal the Bush tax cuts if he is elected, causing poor Joe to have to pay higher taxes if he is lucky enough to win the lottery.

Kelly cited an article in the Wall Street Journal co-authored by Jack Kemp which talks about the Flat Tax as a possible solution to the banking crisis as “crazy talk” backed up by more of his fluffy metaphors. He goes on to state that the Flat Tax won’t work, and simply offers his thought that it would be “really, really, really stupid.” He makes the assumption that it would be a “game changer” for the McCain campaign, suggesting that it would “really shake things up.” Finally, he ends with the ultimate compliment to McCain: “Wouldn’t it be a maverick thing to do?”

The article left me wanting to know more about the Flat Tax. Not that I found the article all that interesting, but the subject does intrigue me. Apparently, Mr. Kelly doesn’t have access to the internet to find actual facts of what the Flat Tax “really, really” is, or he surely would have built a brief case for Tax Reform by briefly comparing the McCain plan to the Obama plan and proffering why the Flat Tax would be better or worse than both, or mentioning that other Presidential hopefuls have been proponents of the Flat Tax.

After all, a political piece should enlighten the reader and encourage her to return to the blog to find out what juicy tidbits the writer has tomorrow. I suppose that political writing is a bit like penmanship. Some writers have a steady, flowing hand. Others have a fine style of writing. Kelly reads more like chicken scratch. I imagine that even his liberal audience found this piece fell dead.