Flat-tax movement stirs (Eastern) Europe

[Rose Siding]

snip>
What flat-tax advocates like Steve Forbes and the Hoover Institution's Alvin Rabushka have been pushing in the United States for decades, Bruncko and a team of Western-educated wunderkinds in this country of 5 million achieved in one year.

Last January, Slovakia became the sixth Eastern European country to adopt a flat tax, which means all income-earners pay the same rate. Since then, Romania and Georgia have followed suit, creating a global proving ground for the concept. In the process, flat-taxers have moved Eastern Europe from a Communist backwater to an investment spring - pressuring its higher-taxed Western neighbors to adapt to the new environment.

US conservatives, meanwhile, hope the experience of flat-tax countries like Slovakia - which the World Bank named top economic reformer last year - will persuade President Bush to implement a flat-tax of his own.

Mr. Bush praised Slovakia's tax-reform efforts during a trip there last month. "I really congratulate ... your government for making wise decisions," he said.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0308/p01s03-woeu.html

[denverbill]

1. Good. Let the American flat taxers move their sorry asses to Romania.

I'm sure they'll love it there.

[KamaAina]

2. How many rich fat cats are in Slovakia or Romania?

Not a tenth as many as we have here, I'll wager -- which is why the flat tax is a terrible idea here; it doesn't work at all when you have the obscene income disparity we have.

Say, what's with this new trend of us emulating policy initiatives from the Third World? I nearly tossed my cookies when I heard the WSJ crowd exhorting us to privatize Social Security, just like murdering dictator Augusto Pinochet did in Chile... :puke:

[Selatius]

3. Russia has a flat tax as well. Putin pushed it through a couple yrs. ago.