Laffer's very big idea

It struck me as I was listening to Dr. Arthur Laffer at the Detroit Economic Club this week that what’s missing from the presidential campaign is one very big idea for fixing the nation’s economy.
President Barack Obama sure doesn’t have it. If he did, he would have unleashed it during his first four years. Instead, he threw taxpayer money at the recession and hoped it would go away. It hasn’t.
So now he’s out with a 20-page booklet that promises to reprise the failed policies of his first term should he win a second. No thanks.
Mitt Romney has a plan, and it’s perfectly sensible. But on the boldness scale, it hardly registers.
Someone should call Laffer.
He’s the father of the Laffer Curve, which pinpoints the intersection between rising taxes and diminishing tax revenues, and was Ronald Reagan’s top economic adviser.
And he’s got a big idea.
Laffer outlined for the economic club a five-part strategy for jolting the economy. It dovetails with Romney’s plan on increasing trade and reducing regulations. Laffer also joins Romney in calling for spending restraint and a sound dollar.
But the biggest and boldest piece of Laffer’s blueprint is tax reform. He would get rid of all current federal taxes and replace them with a simple flat tax. He’d levy 11.8 percent on corporations, and 11.8 percent on individual consumption. That’s it.
Laffer projects his flat tax, when coupled with spending restraint, would give the government all the revenue it needs to operate and put more money in the pocket of wage earners. It would also reward savings and investment, and make the tax code predicatable.
A very big idea.
A nation with big problems needs big ideas.
Someone should tell that to the two guys running for president