David Malpass said he first met Rick Perry when the Texas governor came to New York to address the Manhattan G.O.P’s Lincoln Day Dinner in June, and met with him again when he returned in September for some fundraisers.
“I was struck by his capability of creating an upheaval in Washington’s culture,” Mr. Malpass said of those meetings.
This morning Mike Allen reported that Mr. Malpass signed on as one of a half-dozen key economic advisers to Mr. Perry, just as Mr. Perry prepared to roll out a major plank of his economic platform this afternoon, one that called for a 20% flat tax on income.
Unlike other flat-tax proposals–such as that of Mr. Perry’s rival, Herman Cain– Mr. Malpass said that this one would not raise taxes on lower-income earners.
“That’s not true of this proposal. People can stay in the current system if they want it. No one will have to have higher taxes unless they get a job or get raise because of the faster rate of growth,” he said.
He added that the Perry plan would prohibit value-added taxes, a national sales tax, would cut the marginal tax rates on the corporate side and would limit the ability of tax dodgers to escape payment.
“This is in line with the history of the tax code,” he said. “The rate used to be high, at the beginning of the Reagan administration but with lots of loopholes. The trend of the tax code since the time of Reagan has been lower rates and to try to simplify it.”
Mr. Malpass, who was a policy adviser to Reagan and was partly responsible for 1986 tax reforms, acknowledged that that tax code hasn’t increased in simplicity since then. And he said that tax revenues are at near record levels, because even though tax rates have gone down tax receipts have gone up.
Mr. Malpass ran for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate against Kirsten Gillibrand and received endorsements from the likes of Rudy Giuliani, Diana Taylor and The New York Post. He narrowly lost to former Congressman Joe DioGuardi.
Since then, Mr. Malpass has formed a political action committee called GrowPac, which is dedicated to electing members of Congress who will slow federal spending and debt increases and encourage private sector job growth in New York. He also continues to head an economic research and consulting firm.
Mr. Malpass has been rumored to be taking another look at a Senate run, but would only say about his future political plans, “I am focused on trying to get a faster growing economy and more jobs right now. That is my focus. Washington is even more out of control than when I ran so right now I am on that.”
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