GOP Candidate Rick Perry's Plan for Taxes

"Texas, not California, better be the American future." Such was the admonishment of Daniel Henninger in his Wall Street Journal editorial. Texas flourishes while California declines. How Texas handles taxes shows what works.

The pro-business environment in Texas trumps the pro-environment environment in California. Texas favors people doing well. California favors bugs, birds, and beaches doing well.

One can see wellness in how the two states run themselves. Texas gets out of the way of prosperity; California taps prosperity for public use.

The remarkable differences lay mostly in taxes. Texas Governor and GOP candidate Rick Perry has a plan for tax in America, should he be elected.

Perry's plan for taxes

Individuals would have the option of a 20% flat tax. No complicated filing is required, yet deductions for mortgage interest, local and state taxes, and charity would be allowed.

No tax is collected on long-term capital gains or dividends. No income tax would be collected from a family of four earning $50,000.

The tax rate for businesses would be 20%. A cap of 18% of GDP would be placed on federal spending.

Tax plan for prosperity

Perry's plan contrasts with Obama's plan to tax Americans into oblivion. To see how well that works, check out California's tax-and-spend policies sending people and businesses out of state. Where do they go? You guessed it: Texas.

Read Henninger's account of four businesses--from small ones to big ones--that relocated in Texas. "In California, you are always doing something wrong," said one. Another bemoaned California government constantly setting out impediments to doing business there.

Perry's Texas gets out of the way of business. A 175-year legacy of laissez faire and free markets allow businesses to flourish. Texas is a place of prosperity and jobs, and the place where people who used to have both go to get them again. That puts the exodus as a one-way trip out of California, and America if we let it.

Consider the magnet America would be if it had the people- and business-friendly tax code Perry proposes. The legacy of Texas prosperity can be applied to this nation of states. Perry brings it to voters in simple form and straight from experience.

No other candidate can match the substance and degree of tax reform of Perry's plan. Herman Cain's 9-9-9 plan may be unachievable. Mitt Romney's plan isn't enough. Michael J. Boskin, an economist of repute, compares the candidates' plans in a WSJ editorial and sees no better one than Perry's for turning America around.

Besides, Perry's plan comes with a track record of success. What more could we want?