Fair tax? Give me a break

Ever since Huckabee was on Jay Leno's first show back despite the writers strike and explained his "Fair Tax" plan to America I've written him off my list of plausible presidential candidates. That is a horrible idea and the NY Times agrees with me, as does every sound economist out there. Here's a link to Huckabee's explanation of it if you haven't been keeping up with the political scene.

Some insist that no income tax sounds like heaven (and believe me I'm a conservative so I dislike burgeoning governments), but come on now. Who is going to suffer from this wacky idea to tax almost 30% on every purchase? Middle to lower America, that's right. Reverting back to a flat taxation system is preposterous. Let me reference Megan McArdle, Kriston Capps, and Matthew Yglesias as a few among the many economist bloggers who scoff at the fairness of the fair tax.

And on Clinton winning the New Hampshire primary for the democrats... I expected it anyway. I'm telling you, my prognostication is that she will win the next presidency. I've been calling this ever since about 2002.