Ben Carson rolled out a flat tax plan Monday, just days after a major campaign shake-up that cast further doubts on the ability of Carson to find his way back to the top of the GOP presidential race.
Carson’s proposal calls for a 14.9 percent flat tax on income of those earning above 150 percent of the Federal Poverty Line. The retired neurosurgeon’s overarching goal for tax reform is to “raise revenue, not redistribute wealth.”
Carson talked about his flat tax plan in a Monday morning interview with Fox News, during which he argued that almost everyone should pay taxes. Carson described his plan as, “no deductions, no loopholes, applies to everybody across the board.”
“[G]o back to the Constitution [and] recognize why taxation … exist[s]. It’s because we need money to run the government,” Carson said. “It’s not to control people’s behavior and do all these other things that have been added in with this 80,000 pages of tax regulations.”
Carson begins 2016 with a new presidential campaign manager, but insisted that his campaign is on sound footing. Ed Brookover, who formerly worked as a Carson strategist, serves as campaign manager.
“One of the things that I learned through my many years in corporate America is when things are not working, you have to analyze them very carefully and you have to be willing to make changes and that’s what we did,” Carson said. “There were a few people who couldn’t live with those changes and we gave them an opportunity to resign. And that’s fine. It doesn’t denigrate them in anyway. It just means they’re not able to work within the new structure.”
While any additional changes to the Carson campaign are yet unknown, his family may play an increased role on the presidential campaign trail. Carson’s wife, Candy, is scheduled to appear on Fox News on Tuesday after having avoided speaking to the press for much of the doctor’s presidential campaign thus far.
Carson ranks ninth in the Washington Examiner‘s newest GOP presidential power rankings.
