Rick Perry's Flat Tax Hail Mary

Rick Perry finally introduced his tax plan, a couple days after promising to have a plan ready for us in the CNN debate. Perry wants to simplify:

"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.

This isn't the first time that someone has proposed a flat tax; Steve Forbes, Phil Gramm, and Jerry Brown have all run on it in the past. The problem with the flat tax is that it doesn't stick:

The allure of the flat tax is that it promises to wipe clean the complicated tax code. But it does this by throwing out some popular tax deductions, including breaks for mortgage interest payments, charitable giving and employer-paid health care.

We're talking about its popularity, not its viability. The rich would rather pay money to charity and get deductions than give money to the government. There's still the matter of burdening the poor:

The details of each flat tax proposal differ — the overall rate, whether some low-income families will be exempt and which deductions might be spared on the chopping block. But experts say they invariably increase taxes on lower-income households and cut them for the rich, a potentially dicey proposition for voters worried about the country’s decades-long trend of growing income inequality.

There's also the difficulty that goes with passing it:

“At least, in theory, it’s a simple plan, but getting from here to there would be enormously complex,” Bartlett said.

Others believe that the flat tax is a winner:

After all, tax simplification is both needed and polls well, and the flat tax promises a simpler approach to paying taxes. And at a time when President Obama is campaigning against the fact that Warren Buffett and his secretary pay different rates, the flat tax idea might just have met its moment for broader-based appeal.

Given the "class warfare" battles over taxes and spending and everything else, now might actually be a time when the flat tax has its breakthrough on the national stage.

Others believe that it is a joke:

Just because a tax is flat doesn't mean it can't go up. And if Perry's team designs a plan that maintains popular items such as the charitable deduction it's not a flat tax and pretty soon it looks like the same complicated mess we have now.

Th rich will want the ability to deduct no matter what. If he includes that, then the tax isn't exactly flat. In fact, it would skew it the other way.

The tax might help Perry with the Tea Partiers though:

FreedomWorks Chairman Dick Armey thinks this could revive Mr. Perry’s campaign. “The flat tax does more for Perry’s candidacy than anything else he could have done,” the former House majority leader told The Washington Times in an interview. “If Perry really means it, and he gets elected and makes it the top priority of his presidency, it would be the single best thing that could be done to spur economic growth and job creation in public policy today.”

I'm not so high on it because I don't think it will pass. I think it's very gimmicky. There are going to be questions about whether the poor will be exempt from the tax and what that line will be. There will also be other questions like deducations and things like that. Regarding conservatives, I think Perry is going to win over voters with this. The question is will he stand tall in defending it. There are a lot of things about it that raise questions and to really make a stand, he'll have to start doing well in debates, which, if you've seen the other debates, is as tall a task as Perry can face.

At the end of the day, it's a novel attempt to try and get back in the race. This could be his prayer at the buzzer.