WASHINGTON -- The last time a leading Western politician introduced a flat tax, she paid dearly for it.
Margaret Thatcher's 1988 poll, or head, tax on every Briton led to demonstrations around the country and a violent riot in London's Trafalgar Square, and inflamed the "fairness issue" that contributed to her downfall a year later.
The ordinary Briton was outraged at the notion that the pauper in public housing had to pay exactly the same tax as the lord in his manor. By popular demand, the head tax, which replaced a value-based property tax, is to be converted into a more progressive system next year.
Now comes Jerry Brown, advancing in the Democratic primaries on a tide of voter anger, a slew of vague promises and a single firm policy: a flat 13 percent income tax.
Mr. Brown would tax the salary of the auto executive in Detroit at the same rate as the pay of an auto mechanic in Dundalk, the guest in the hotel penthouse at the same rate as the porter who delivers room service.
What is particularly surprising is that a social liberal from California, that most progressive of states, should be advocating this most regressive of taxes. It would reverse the entire thrust of modern U.S. fiscal policy: the use of taxes to equalize income distribution by charging the the rich more and the poor less.
Citizens for Tax Justice, a think tank that devotes its efforts to making the tax system fairer, calls Mr. Brown's tax suggestion "stupid."
Mr. Brown not only advocates replacing current tax brackets with a flat 13 percent tax on individual income, but he would also scrap corporate taxes and substitute a flat 13 percent value added tax.
The result, according the Citizens for Tax Justice, would be higher taxes on most families, lower taxes on the rich and an increase of $200 billion in the federal budget deficit.
"It would be the greatest thing for the rich and powerful since Andrew Mellon was Calvin Coolidge's Treasury secretary in the 1920s," said an analysis by the think tank.
Advocates of a flat tax do not dispute that it would help the rich, but argue that it would give a major boost to the economy.
"A flat tax is a very good idea. It's an abusive idea that our tax codes should be deliberately designed to redistribute income and punish those who make more money," said Daniel Mitchell, economist with the conservative Heritage Foundation. "Outside of Havana, Cuba, you would think that those ideas would not have much credibility any more."
