Romney Will Plug Holes in the Safety Net

Gov. Romney put his foot in it recently when he said that he isn’t interested in the poor, because they have a safety net and he would plug any holes in the net. He implied that holes in the net might allow the poor to fall out of the net and suffer. Well, he wouldn’t want that to happen, would he?

The central problem with the safety net is not holes in its bottom. Instead, it is that there are no holes in its top. It is difficult to rise above the net. That is, the net is a trap keeping people in poverty. In its place, we need a tax system that smoothly involves all citizens: poor, middle income, and rich. Instead of myriad programs that make up the current safety net, we need a truly flat tax that allows, even encourages, people to increase their incomes. In order to do this, we need a tax rate that can be kept in the range of being reasonable, nowhere near 100%. With the truly flat tax, the poor would receive cash subsidies which would decline gradually as their income rises. At the same time, this means no more food stamps, housing subsidies, unemployment compensation, and so on and on.