Middle-class taxes now!
There's a good profile of David Cameron, North Kensington resident, in the Guardian today. He goes down to the West Country and Thurlestone, to talk about urban deprivation (yes, odd) with the local MP, Anthony Steen, who is 'completely mad' according to "Cameronites". So the scene is set for laughs of our favourite kind, and it doesn't disappoint. The article tells us:He talks glowingly about the regeneration of inner-city Birmingham. "Flat-rate tax!" shouts a portly gentleman at the back, apropos of not very much.
This short exchange encapsulates almost all thinking on "flat-rate taxes", ie not much at all. It has become, if not quite a religion, a kind of comfort blanket for Tories to shout when things are going bad. We're lucky they're not in power, or they would be proclaiming it the solution to the chaos in Iraq (as it is we have the Decent-Left like Aaro and the Republican Party to do that). Of course it's pretty well established now that, as logic demands, if you tax the rich less, and the poor less, then it's the middle-class who get stung, and so, as Bob Dole once said, a flat-tax is really a middle-class tax, and the portly gentleman from Devon should be careful for what he wishes.
posted by Matthew @ 9/29/2005 09:04:00 AM
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