Maybe We Should Draft This Guy

As all of my loyal readers are aware (both of you), I recently awarded Jim DeMint "Coolest Person In Congress At The Moment." This is a very prestigious award in certain ranks. It just happens that those ranks are very secretive, so chances are you have never heard of them.

I did a little investigation, which means I looked at Senator DeMint's website. I discovered that his push to stop shamnesty isn't the only thing that makes this man a patriot and a great American who should be placed upon a pedestal and have his praises sung to him. Ok, maybe I'm a little overboard.

Senator DeMint also supports a version of the Consumption Tax, or Fair Tax. He calls it the "8.5% Tax Reform Plan." The specifics are on his website. Here are the highlights:

Replace all individual federal income taxes with a flat 8.5% national retail sales tax on new goods and services.

Provide a universal rebate to all Americans so that the poor are not taxed on basic consumption. The rebate is applied through the reduction in payroll taxes.

Replace all corporate income taxes with a flat 8.5% business transfer tax.

He claims that this is revenue neutral. This is a matter of debate. The estimates for a needed consumption tax rate have been between 23% and 35% to ensure that the federal revenues continue to rise to pay for all of the very necessary earmarks for Congressional pet projects that mean nothing to the average taxpayer. However, the argument remains that if we had such bold tax reform, it would increase economical investment in the U.S. to such an extent that tax revenues could possibly increase substantially. Companies and individuals would no longer spend untold billions on tax preparations and the prices of goods and services would decrease. Fewer jobs would be sent overseas. This may or may not be tax neutral, the problem is that we just don't know until we try it. It is all economical theory. Of course, if you added this bold reform to spending reform, it increases your chances of tax neutrality.

Because this is so debatable an issue, we will instead stick to the 45,000 page long IRS tax code that no one understands and which currently allows an estimated 400 billion dollars in tax cheats each year. That is an interesting estimate because if the IRS were collecting it, there would be no federal deficit at the moment. I just thought I would mention that part.

Senator DeMint seems to have a strong position on two very important issues, borders and taxes. This is why I would like to see him have more of a leadership roll in the Republican Party in D.C. right now. In fact, I wouldn't mind seeing this guy as a Presidential candidate. I like his stance on both of these very important issues, and he demonstrated an ability last week to play the political game when it was necessary to help stall the horrible shamnesty bill, I mean the "Comprehensive Immigration Reform" bill. No, I mean shamnesty. He was able to gain enough support from a handful of Republicans and Democrats to force a vote the stalled the bill. He will now be judged on his ability to finish killing this thing. If he can get it done, it would certainly help him gain popularity with the American public.

Of course there are already ten men running for the GOP nomination. The two most liberal are the front runners because they are popular. Senator DeMint is not popular like McCain and Giuliani, and he isn't an actor. If he jumped into the race, he would lose. And we would probably lose too because he would be focusing on his campaign and his help in defeating shamnesty would be missed.

I do have a compromise however. Maybe DeMint should be Fred Thompson's running mate.