Thread: Huntsman's Jobs Plan

Since the media didn't cover it very well, I thought some here might like to see Jon Huntsman's jobs plan prior to the debates. You can get the whole 12 pages from his website.

Blog | Jon Huntsman for President



"Posted by Jon Huntsman
August 31, 2011
TIME TO COMPETE
An American Jobs Plan

Overview:

Tax Reform

Simplify The Personal Income Tax Code And Lower Rates. Rather than nibble around the edges of the existing tax code, Gov. Huntsman will introduce a revenue-neutral tax plan that eliminates all deductions and credits in favor of three drastically lower rates of 8%, 14% and 23%. Eliminating deductions and credits in favor of lower marginal rates will yield a simpler and more efficient tax code, decreasing the burden on taxpayers.

Eliminate The Alternative Minimum Tax. Under the new simplified plan, Gov. Huntsman will eliminate the Alternative Minimum Tax, which is not indexed for inflation and is penalizing an increasing number of families and small businesses.

Eliminate The Taxes On Capital Gains And Dividends In Order To Eliminate The Double Taxation On Investment. Capital gains and dividend taxes amount to a double-taxation on individuals who choose to invest. Because dollars invested had to first be earned, they have already been subject to the income tax. Taxing these same dollars again when capital gains are realized serves to deter productive and much-needed investment in our economy.

Reduce The Corporate Rate From 35% To 25%. The United States cannot compete while burdened with the second-highest corporate tax rate in the developed world; American companies and our workers deserve a level playing field. With high unemployment, it is important that we not push corporations and capital overseas. We need employers to be based in America if they're going to provide jobs to Americans.

Regulatory Reform

Repeal Existing Regulations, Including Obamacare And Dodd-Frank. Obamacare, a $1 trillion bomb that our nation cannot afford, included more than 40 provisions that require, permit, or contemplate rulemaking by federal agencies and established dozens of new governmental organizations or advisory boards. Dodd-Frank fails to solve "too big to fail" and guarantees slow credit and slow productivity gains for the near future.

Dramatically Rein In The EPA. While the nation struggles to recover from economic turmoil, EPA has imposed vast new rules on the nation's energy producers, crippling one of the most critically important components of economic recovery: energy supply. Among the rules Gov. Huntsman will oppose is a new ozone rule that would effectively halt new construction.

Curb The Excesses Of "Independent" Agencies. Gov. Huntsman will actively fight to ensure that the NLRB and other agencies abandon their job-destroying policies.

Reform The FDA By Streamlining The Testing And Approval Process. The FDA's slow-paced approval process puts American companies, including those in the biotech and health sciences industries, at a comparative disadvantage to foreign competitors and imposes unnecessary delays.

Enact Comprehensive Patent Reform. The outstanding backlog at the US Patent Office hurts innovation. The approval process needs to be streamlined to weed out rent seeking and foster invention.

Stabilize The Housing Market. Our country cannot stabilize the economy without stabilizing the housing market. As president, Gov. Huntsman will privatize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and let the housing market settle in order to see sustainable growth.

Energy Independence

End OPEC's Pricing And Supply Power, Promote Jobs, And Increase Overall Domestic Supply. The United States must expedite the process for reviewing and approving safe, environmentally sound energy projects, including the development of North American oil and gas reserves; oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska; shale gas and oil in the U.S.; and Canadian oil sands.

Level The Playing Field And Create A Fully Competitive Market For Cleaner Domestic Alternative Transportation Fuels. The United States must eliminate the subsidies and regulations that support foreign oil and inhibit domestic alternatives such as compressed natural gas (CNG), electricity, biofuels, and coal-to-liquids, which are not price-controlled by OPEC."

Sounds like huge deficits + massive layoffs + dirty air + dirty water=jobs

Except the jobs part isn't guaranteed.....

The deficit question is interesting. Personally, I like him saying "revenue-neutral" tax reform, while proposing no deductions and replacing current rates with a version of the nickel, dime, quarter idea. No one really can calculate what revenues would result, but it's a poorly kept secret that Corporations effectively pay 18% with their much-lamented "highest rate in the world." Similarly, the wealthy might accidentally put more into the Treasury if thousands of pages of loopholes weren't there.

Originally Posted by mahayana

The deficit question is interesting. Personally, I like him saying "revenue-neutral" tax reform, while proposing no deductions and replacing current rates with a version of the nickel, dime, quarter idea. No one really can calculate what revenues would result, but it's a poorly kept secret that Corporations effectively pay 18% with their much-lamented "highest rate in the world." Similarly, the wealthy might accidentally put more into the Treasury if thousands of pages of loopholes weren't there.

The 400 largest tax returns pay 16.6%.
At the core of this 16.6% is the 15% capital gains tax.
Huntsman reduces this to zero.
This would be a huge savings for the 400 largest individual returns.
So who makes up the difference?


He's saying we'll still have huge deficits, the tax the wealthiest people in the country pay the most of, we'll eliminate.
And we'll collect the same amount of money (if the wealthy pay less, the middle class pay more , that's called math)

Nothing new. Unless democrats agree, nothing like it will ever pass.

Originally Posted by mahayana

Simplify The Personal Income Tax Code And Lower Rates. Rather than nibble around the edges of the existing tax code, Gov. Huntsman will introduce a revenue-neutral tax plan that eliminates all deductions and credits in favor of three drastically lower rates of 8%, 14% and 23%. Eliminating deductions and credits in favor of lower marginal rates will yield a simpler and more efficient tax code, decreasing the burden on taxpayers.

So who gets to pay 23% and have less deductions?

Reduce The Corporate Rate From 35% To 25%.

Are they getting less deductions as well?

Dramatically Rein In The EPA. While the nation struggles to recover from economic turmoil, EPA has imposed vast new rules on the nation's energy producers, crippling one of the most critically important components of economic recovery: energy supply. Among the rules Gov. Huntsman will oppose is a new ozone rule that would effectively halt new construction.

Don't gut the EPA but it certainly doesn't need to expand past laws and regulations which most certainly did clean our air and water. We don't need America the open sewer as it was prior prior to the EPA.


[QUOTE]Enact Comprehensive Patent Reform. The outstanding backlog at the US Patent Office hurts innovation. The approval process needs to be streamlined to weed out rent seeking and foster invention.[/QUOTES]

Companies with a good product can steam on ahead with "patent pending", if they are cowards they deserve to get out of the way.

Stabilize The Housing Market. Our country cannot stabilize the economy without stabilizing the housing market. As president, Gov. Huntsman will privatize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and let the housing market settle in order to see sustainable growth.

So he's got a magic wand that's going to sell houses to people without jobs, amazing.

Aside from energy development I'm not seeing many jobs in this Job Plan.

He says capital gains are double taxed. By that logic so are people buying anything anywhere with sales tax. It would essentially mean the rich would be able to live income tax free. What a glorious society he envisions. Good thing such a ludicrous plan won't even be implemented. The middle class' buying power is what drives the economy and powers the country. When will the GOP cult understand this?

Originally Posted by Danny

He says capital gains are double taxed. By that logic so are people buying anything anywhere with sales tax.

Let's go with that logic just for the sake of argument. Then how does that mean that the rich "live income tax free"? Also, how does one tax justify another tax? It just does?

Like I said, impossible to calculate revenue-neutral with serious tax code reform, like starting over with a new formula and none of the current thousands of pages of deductions/loopholes/credits. But I suspect that IRS would get more just by eliminating millions of pages of iffy calculations, not to mention what businesses would save on what they now spend for tax accountants and lawyers. It would be a grand experiment that the CBO could try to evaluate, hah!

Well, the Fair tax guys already did that. Tons of research went into making it revenue neutral.