One of the things I like most about Rand is his offering of economic freedom zones to distressed areas, namely inner city areas which will help out the poorest of the poor.
a. Reduce the Individual Income tax to a single, flat rate of 5 percent. The individual
income tax rate not only taxes individual wage earners, but also taxes small
businesses. More than 75 percent of small businesses are organized as pass-through
entities (businesses which pass along income directly to the individual, thus get taxed
at the individual income tax rates). According to the Tax Foundation, small
businesses organized as sole proprietorships in states like Kentucky and Michigan
have a top marginal tax rate above 45 percent; in California as high as 52 percentii. A
lower tax rate provided to Economic Freedom Zone areas will significantly
encourage business expansion.
b. Reduce the Corporate Income tax to a single, flat rate of 5 percent. The U.S.
corporate income tax rate is among the highest in the world. Countries like Spain,
the United Kingdom, and Switzerland have tax rates at 30 percent or less – and one
of our largest international competitors, China, has a corporate tax rate of just 25
percentiii. Even our closest neighbor, Canada, is outcompeting us with a tax rate of
only 15 percentiv. We need to allow U.S. business to better compete internationally,
and reducing the corporate rate from the current 35 percent to a low rate of five
percent for businesses in economically depressed areas will allow those businesses to
expand and compete globally.
c. Reduce the payroll tax by 2 percent for the employer, and 2 percent for the employee.
There is an oft-cited document by the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation
highlighting the statistic that 47 percent of all U.S. households pay no federal income
tax. This fact is true, but is not the entire story. All workers still pay the federal
payroll tax – and for many of these households, it is their largest tax liability. In
order to encourage employers to hire more employees in blighted areas we should
allow the employer to reduce the amount of payroll tax they pay per employee. In
addition, allowing low-to-middle- income families to keep more of their hard earned
money will help increase their standard-of-living.
Suspend the capital gains tax. This proposal allows any individual that owns stock or
tangible assets that are located within the areas deemed “Economic Freedom Zones”
to reduce their long-term capital gains tax rate to zero. This will reduce capital costs
and encourage greater investment in business and real estate in these areas.
And that's just to name a few of what this plan does. Here's the full deal:
http://www.paul.senate.gov/files/documents/EconomicFreedomZones.pdfThis would leave a billion dollars back in the city of Detroit over a decade by them just keeping more of their money and growing businesses already in existence as an example. As these bankrupt areas start to revive it'll show that freer markets and capitalism are the causes and this will be called for to expand across the country and permanently put a stake in the heart of progressivism once and for all. I could go on and on about his other stances like pro-privacy/civil liberties by reigning in the NSA but I'll just stick with this as no other major candidate has ideas anywhere remotely close to Rand's cause the rest are just distractions. I like Cruz but he's too much of a war hawk.
