Question to Ricochet: Is this a brilliant idea or what? | Ricochet.com | 03.08.14

In Southern California for the Pacific Research Institute’s annual Baroness Margaret Thatcher Orange County Dinner last night, I had lunch shortly after landing with a veteran of political communications in this state.

Over our meal, he began to go on in the manner all of us go on about the cluelessness of Republicans in Washington. “In the course of one month,” he said, “Bengazi, the IRS scandal, and the tapping of the Associated Press all broke — and the GOP couldn’t do a thing with it.” I just listened. I thought he  was being a bit harsh, but we all need to get these frustrations out now and again.

Then he said something that made me sit up, take note and, now, write this post.

“The GOP,” he continued, “should come out for a flat tax and announce that, thanks to all the administrative savings from so vastly simplifying the tax code, we’ll lay off half the IRS. Get rid of all those agents they hired for Obamacare and many more. Americans hate the IRS. The complexity of the tax code is a big reason for the agency’s corruption. And you get a tax code that is friendly to economic growth to boot. Tie the two issues — stagnation and corruption — together.”

“What a brilliant reframing of the discussion,” I thought. “And where better to test it out than Ricochet.”

So here is my question: What do you think?