The flat income tax: a road to fairness.

• Author: Armey, Richard K.

"It taxes all income once and only once, with no loopholes, exemptions, exclusions, or exceptions, yet raises nearly as much money as the current tax code."

Our government is too big, and it spends and taxes too much. Government in America is larger than the entire economy of any other nation in the world except Japan and Germany. For the first time, there are more government employees than there are workers in American manufacturing. The average family now pays more in taxes to government than it does for food, clothing, and shelter for itself.

The November, 1994, elections signaled that the nation's voters are fed up with big, intrusive, and inefficient government. House Republicans have responded to the call for a smaller government by beginning a new "freedom revolution," led by the Contract With America. It is time to take that revolution another step with a new Federal tax code. The present one is fundamentally flawed, unfair, and needs to be thrown out. While several plans have been offered to overhaul the system, I believe that the flat income tax most completely and honestly addresses the needs of taxpayers.

Together with Sen. Richard Shelby (R.-Ala.), I recently introduced The Freedom and Fairness Restoration Act, a proposal for a new Federal tax system in a smaller, more efficient government. Its cornerstone is a flat income tax, with one single rate for individuals and businesses. It restores to the Federal tax code the traditional American definition of fairness--treating everyone the same with no preferences, set-asides, or special favors. Its explicit embrace of fairness has made the flat tax widely popular with the public--and eventually the politicians in Washington will come along. The flat income tax will be a centerpiece of the 1996 national elections, and I predict will be enacted soon afterward.

A flat income tax brings three elements desperately needed in Federal income tax policy--fairness, simplicity, and incentives for economic growth. It taxes all income once and only once, with no loopholes, exemptions, exclusions, or exceptions, yet raises nearly as much money as the current tax code. The bill also calls for a 60% super-majority of both houses of Congress to raise tax rates or recomplicate the code ensuring that the concerns of average Americans for fairness will prevail over the insistent calls for complication by well-connected interests.

Fairness is the greatest virtue of the flat tax. It is based on the idea...