When former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee included a plug for the FairTax in his presidential campaign announcement, few who remember his 2008 bid were surprised. But Huckabee’s support for the FairTax proposal shows how much influence activists pushing seemingly arcane tax plans wield over GOP presidential politics.
Huckabee presided over multiple tax increases as a governor, which he has since defended. But he has once again pledged his full support for the FairTax, which would eliminate the federal income tax and replace it with a national sales tax.
“It would be the end of big government bailouts and, most importantly, we finally rid ourselves of the biggest bully in America, the IRS,” Huckabee said, touting the benefits of his favored tax policy. “The IRS would disappear and April 15 would be just another beautiful spring day.”
Huckabee’s devotion to implementing a national sales tax has its roots in his last presidential bid, when FairTax supporters lifted him to national prominence in the Iowa straw poll. Americans for Fair Taxation, a nonprofit organization that promotes FairTax legislation, reportedly spent $150,000 and bused in approximately 1,500 people for the occasion. While this is unlikely to happen again — the organization had second thoughts after Huckabee’s ultimate defeat — taxes are an issue that motivates voters.
Perhaps no organization in the conservative tax policy debate wields more power than Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform. Norquist’s “Taxpayer Protection Pledge,” which rules out support for any tax increase, has been signed — either now or in the past — by nearly every 2016 Republican presidential candidate. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is the most prominent GOP candidate who has not signed or expressed support for the pledge. Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman was the only Republican presidential candidate not to sign the pledge in 2012.
“We keep hoping Bush will make the commitment,” Norquist said in an email. “He did not raise taxes as a governor.”
For those who do pledge not to raise taxes, the question becomes what type of tax reform package they will choose to adopt. Several candidates have publicly indicated their support for a flat tax, including Ben Carson, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who said he is working with Steve Forbes to develop a flat tax proposal for 2016. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., partnered with Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, to craft an overhaul of the tax code that would include lowering income tax rates and eliminating the estate tax and capital gains taxes, among many other components.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who is considering a presidential bid, plans to unveil his own tax-reform agenda today. Christie will reveal his five-point plan — which will include lowering corporate tax rates — at the University of New Hampshire, according to the New Hampshire Union Leader.
As candidates prepare their tax policy proposals for 2016, most of the plans are moving toward consumption-based taxes, which target spending rather than income. Ryan Ellis, Americans for Tax Reform’s tax-policy director, said he encourages Republican candidates’ staffs not to choose a plan that “has been sitting on the shelf” and requires little effort to develop, such as the FairTax.
“Take a fresh look at the data, don’t just take something that was developed 20 years ago and say, ‘Oh that’s mine,'” and run on that,” Ellis told the Washington Examiner. “You’ll benefit as a campaign from really having to hash this out.”
Many presidential candidates in the increasingly crowded Republican primary have paid lip service to tax reform and have made a habit of calling for the abolition of the IRS. Even the GOP field’s largely unknown candidates who have little chance of winning appear to agree on taxes. Mark Everson, a lesser-known candidate without a clear path to the nomination, is a former IRS commissioner that wants to eliminate the IRS completely. As a result, conservative activists appear more hopeful about achieving tax reform after the 2016 election than at any point in the past eight years. Steve Hayes, Americans for Fair Taxation president, said he thinks many candidates are moving in the right direction.
“This is the first time in eight years where you’ve had a real primary with people who are in general agreement about tax policy. By that I mean they’re agreeing that it needs to be consumption-based and it needs to be simpler,” Hayes told the Washington Examiner. “And so there’s a real opportunity going to be coming — and maybe even if the Democrat wins — coming after the 2016 election.”
