(Some of this I’ve posted before. Apologies.)

I hope Palin get in because the position of someone who?s number one issue is enacting a flat tax and doing other things to fundamentally change the way government works is still somewhat open.

Looking at the current Republican candidates on economic positions:

a) Romney has a timid economic plan which tinkers at the borders of the current tax system. Its most likely an improvement but its not bold or transformative. Romney while governor ran ads against Steve Forbes’ flat tax plan in 1996. It shows real commitment on an issue to spend your own precious campaign dollars to run ads against some other race’s candidate. During this election, Romney is showing the same level of commitment against allowing any talk about transforming the Social Security System from a wealth transfer system into something else.

b) Perry doesn?t have even a hint of a plan yet on his website, doesn’t mention the bare bones of a plan in his stump speeches that I’ve heard, and avoided answering when posed a question about it during the debates. At the very best, that’s extremely troubling since a true economic conservative should be bubbling over with ideas about what to do. And I say that as a delegate to the Texas state Republican convention who after hearing Perry (running for Sec of Agriculture) speak to us was struck with the realization that someday this man would be President.

He might still become president but I was disappointed when he entered the race this time around and have been more disappointed with him as a candidate. And that was my opinion before his poor Florida debate performance.

c) Newt doesn?t have a plan yet but intends to announce one within weeks.

d) Cain has his 999 plan which he openly admits he came to not out of economic considerations of the best level of taxation for maximizing government revenue or for maximizing economic activity. He states he came up with 999 because he wanted the rates for his three tax categories to be the same. I have to assume that?s for the political reason of 999 being catchy and easy to remember for the average voter this election season since Cain hasn?t advanced any other explanation of why the rates should be the same.

On the grounds of workability and political viability, his plan would be a large tax increase on the poor. Non-working poor face a 9% increase through the new sales tax. Working poor would be facing that 9% increase plus the 9% income tax minus the elimination of the payroll tax (which is near 6%) for a total tax increase of more than 12%. His website makes no mention of an earned income tax credit which would be a further tax increase on the working poor. There?s no mention of businesses being required to pass along their savings on their portion of the elimination of payroll taxes on to the employees nor any requirement for businesses to pass along savings on their business income taxes along to their customers or employees. Over a number of years, those savings would inevitably be passed on down as businesses compete to stay competitive but you couldn?t count on that money in the first few years to be there to cushion the plan?s tax increases on the poor. Other republicans aren?t attacking Cain?s plan because Cain doesn?t look likely to win. But if Cain wins the nomination, would you seriously expect a democrat opponent to fail to point out proposed huge tax increases on the poor and milk that issue for all its worth?

e) Paul wants to eliminate the income tax and raise other national taxes to pay for it. In the long run, that?s where we need to be, Eliminating the income tax could have been done, revenue neutral, at any point in the early 1990?s if spending had been rolled back to what it had been four years earlier. But that window of opportunity closed. To go directly to that without any transition would require more scorched earth tactics to the federal government and more tariff and other tax increases than any president is likely to get public support for.

f) Bachmann on her website is vaguely for lower taxes (which taxes?), eliminating the tax code (apparently the income tax code but with no word on to be replaced by what) and doesn?t understand what the debt ceiling does and what it doesn?t do.

There is no ?national credit card?. Instead, the government has hundreds of thousands of lines of credit arranged with hundreds of thousands of businesses and government employees. A government employee provides work to the government on credit trusting that the government will pay the employment bill at the end of the pay period. A business provides goods and services to the government based on the government?s promise to pay their bill at the end of the month.

Spending authority for the government comes through the budget process (or through the current lack of a budget process).

The debt ceiling is not the spending authority but the payment authority. Its what the person who pays the government?s bills looks at before he writes the check at the end of the month. If the government has enough room under the ceiling to incur the debt it would take to pay the bill then the bill is paid. If there isn?t room, the government doesn?t pay out the money it owes for the goods and services it has already received.

Note this has nothing to do with the government continuing to spend money. Each government agency still has its lines of credit already in place and the authority from the budget to continue to use those lines of credit to continue doing its business whether or not the government ultimately is able to pay the bill under the debt ceiling or not. The only thing which would stop the spending is for Congress to change the law to make agencies stop spending or for all those lines of credit to be closed down because the government is not paying its bills.

In previous years, the republicans have chosen to stand against government spending when taking a stand against irresponsible spending. This year, the republicans instead decided, shortly before the crisis, to pass an Obama spending bill then to take the stand that the government shouldn?t pay all the debts it had already incurred . In baseball this is called an ?unforced error?. People, companies, and countries who don?t pay their bills or who threaten long and loudly that they will quit paying their bills damage their credit rating. Win or lose on this year?s debt ceiling debate, Congress would still have had to pass spending cuts into law to stop the government from continuing to spend money.

So it makes no sense to let the spending bills pass on by into law then hold strong on the debt ceiling if your goal is to stop the government from spending. You could stop the country from spending BORROWED money if you completely destroyed the country?s credit rating because no one would extend credit to it.But you can?t stop it from spending altogether because the government can print money rather than borrow it.

I know the public in general aren’t familiar with how the government’s financial structure works. But there’s really no excuse for congressmen to either 1) not know how it works or 2) deliberately put the country’s credit rating at risk as part of political grandstanding which will increase the interest rate we pay to rollover the existing debt or force the Fed to print trillions instead of rolling the debt over as government bonds mature.

g) Santorum vaguely supports low taxes. His website doesn?t say whether he wants additional tax cuts or if he wants to keep things as they are when he takes over as president. If he wants to cut taxes, he doesn?t say which taxes he wants to cut. If he wants to cut income taxes, he doesn?t say whether he wants to direct tax cuts at things which would directly help economic growth such as tax rates or if he would cater to the family values crowd with increasing deductions for kids.

I’m as family-oriented as the next happily married father but economically cutting tax rates to make opening and running a small business a more viable prospect is better than targeting a tax cut to families with children. That was the essence of Forbes vs Bush in 2000. Bush chose to pour a vast amount of money into tax cuts targeted at groups who he wanted to attract as his primary voters and opted against more dramatic rate cuts which would have been better for the economy in the long run. Now we’re living in the long run, the economy has missed out on the level of growth it could have had over the last ten years, and the country is still needing some fundamental tax overhaul. So looking at families with kids as they exist today, were the Bush cuts targeted at them the best option or would it be better for them if the economy were good and they could find work?

That’s why I say leadership is meaningless. We’ve had, and have, leadership. Bush led but only vaguely in the right general direction. Obama is vigorously and successfully leading in the wrong direction. What we need is someone who is leading in exactly the right direction and who knows exactly how to get from here to there.

h) Huntsman doesn?t write out any plan on his website.

i) Gary Johnson states he wants to simplify the tax code (I assume the personal income tax code), eliminate punitive taxation of savings and investment. (does that mean all taxation of it or just the punitive part of it), and eliminate the corporate income tax. I don?t have a problem with any of those concepts but there?s a huge number of ways that could be done and not all of those ways would be easy or painless.

Johns appears to want to pay for those change that by ?revising the terms? of Social Security and Medicare. That sounds like more like changing the rules in the middle of the game by means-testing and raising the retirement age rather than changing Social Security by turning it into a pension program. I don’t think changing the rules of the game to make the location of the goalpost further away then banning some of the players outright from ever reaching it passes a fairness test. (For that matter, I think that Romney’s unspoken assumption that “someone receiving a Social Security check automatically means that person thinks the Social Security is successful program” passes the laugh test. But I shouldn’t digress.)

Now from the last debate, not his website, Johnson is also wanting to come up with large wads of money through massive cuts to the military. Leaving aside how bad that idea seems on the surface, I don?t think Johnson could win votes in the general election on this issue since Obama will always be able to out-promise a republican on how much he?s willing to cut the military, If necessary, Obama could promise to cut the military budget to zero then promise loan guarantees for military expenses to any country which would care to become our enemy. Top that, Johnson!

So I think there’s a legitimate opening in the republican field for someone who is willing to aggressively work to change the nature of government. Palin or another candidate could, for example, adopt Steve Forbe?s flat tax platform wholesale from his 1996 campaign then raid Ron Paul?s gold standard supporters by either promising to eliminate the Fed or by promising to, by force of law, require the Fed to use their financial tools to stabilize the value of the dollar relative to gold rather than leaving the Fed officials free to do whatever the heck they feel like. There’s a large number of Republicans and independents who are upset at the government’s mismanagement of the money supply but who are put off by Ron Paul’s manner or foreign policy positions.

I think Palin at the heart wants the dramatic changes in government that Bachmann talks about but hasn?t proposed yet. And Bachmann is completely correct that if ever there was an election to push for every change in wasteful government policies we?ve ever dreamed of, this is the year.