training is floyd brown he's president of the national campaign fund also
chairman of the western center for journalism great to talk to you flick
good to talk to you
you wrote this editorial said
aim of the media is basically ignoring the g_o_p_ presidential race as well as
some of the economic ideas that are being presented within it
uh... tell me what exactly is in getting enough attention your opinion and from
who
yet the into about
first of all they're not ignoring the race
that's not my contention
my contention is that we have a problem in the media that uh... they always want
to deal with presidential campaigns like you're a horse race
and it screws up two percent in this quarter i was down two percent in this
calling
insurer florida
instead of dealing with ideas and uh...
you know it significant to that uh...
all of these candidates approach
the problems of america faces in slightly different way so i think
americans to really make an informed decision
need to have a good understanding of what those differences are and i just
don't think it can treats what what i will call the mainstream media that you
do in talk radio and
on the internet and other places you do get a more you know uh... intense
discussion as some of these ideas but uh... in the mainstream media i'd just
haven't heard the kind of discussion i'd like to hear
about ideas okay so which ideas on which media outlets are not being discussed
very specifically here
well
you know which media outlets let's would just say
the alphabet soup of a_b_c_ n_b_c_ c_b_s_
uh... are discussing planes
for example like uh... ron paul's of budget plan
ron paul's budget plan in
in my opinion
uh... is totally uni
week in the republican field in the uh... actually balances the budget
in uh... three years with over a trillion dollars in budget cuts ok now
valujet ronald reagan
we has hamanaka actually eliminate departments i want no eliminate the
department of education the department of energy
the department of commerce and others but but finally illegitimate insulated
stand like this for ya yet
uh... if you don't go around polls website are or
you know get one of these emails you probably won't know much about the wrong
all bunch of course that's a proposal though which has been called eliminating
those departments has been called untenable and reckless by bike countless
economy
time after time we just spoke to a condom is richard wolf about this just
last week
is it possible that some of these proposals are getting more discussion
because they're absurd
yeah well i don't think they're answered
uh... you know ronald reagan wanted to uh... abolish the department of
education back in nineteen eighty
and i think the fact that there's a benefits in washington d_c_ with marble
and thousands of people that don't vegetate one-child ism is a terrible
waste of money and resources
that even worse than that every school district in america across the country
has compliance officers who their full time job is to send reports all these
people back in washington d_c_ so actually the money is being drained out
of the classroom in district after district to deal with all these
compliance issues so what you have is a is a is a huge sog costs that's not
executing
on child and i think it's it's wrong and i think uh...
you know comets can call whatever they want you know topic on the idea ten
economists will tell you it's a great idea
but uh... reckless and i'm terrible
now will you know in the it's interesting you bring up ronald reagan
because in your article you mention reagan and do you talk about reagan's
success was lowering rates
and eliminating politically-motivated tax incentives that that that's from
your article and you don't want when i look add a lot of the presidential
candidates and their advisers there's so much talk of ronald reagan
and when i actually look at what did ronald reagan do yes he dropped the top
marginal tax rate
everything else seems to be completely ignored i mean the idea that
he created the department of veterans affairs that's yet another department is
that department okay even though it was sixty thousand more people in the
federal workforce it seems very arbitrary and hand picking ron paul
wants to eliminate certain departments and then ronald reagan was great but he
added of huge amount of the national deficit and federal work force
well actually if you look at the reagan uh... record carefully you'll see the
discretionary spending
i went down
across three of the reagans eight years now
uh... if in fact uh...
you know that's not a perfect record
but uh... you know he held steady min check and when i talk about uh...
eliminating
needy the political deductions
there was a tax reform bill that was really a bipartisan plan because you
have to remember
uh... ronald reagan never served with a congress it was completely of his own
um... party
and so unlike uh...
a lot of presidents uh... he had to compromise and so
uh...
they did i think a pretty
darn good job when they uh... i've put together their tax
compromise because
heeheehee ended allot of uh... what i will call crony capitalism or special
incentives for special political groups are chosen groups are
or uh... whatever you want to call them and i think that uh... in the inning
near you note twenty five-plus years since reagan left
the um...
uh... although it's been added back in clubs and uh... the a bit of a tax load
so i hope not i was psalm
the thousand pages long it's complex here
and special groups uh... get all kinds of special goodies as a result of that i
think it's just wrong by just don't understand the obsession we see with
reagan and so many conservative circles when he tripled the federal budget
deficit unemployment soared after his eighty one tax cuts
raise taxes eleven times i mean even former robotic and senator alan deale is
an alternate history because uh... you know i graduated from college in
nineteen in three twenty terrible job market that was results of the jimmy
carter recessions
and uh...
uh... she got the economy moving and uh... union high energy benefited from
that
uh... that you know there has been a recession as bad as that recession until
now
and uh... milliken sarah palin serious admitting that you are doing all that
really moves to get the economy moving and and uh...
you know i'd just like you're dealing with an alternate reality i don't i
don't
i'm not really the same history you're reading group and other important dated
from but uh... economist from republican senator alan simpson and ron snooze in
the last week republican senator alan simpson gave me this alternate history
on fox news to his cronies
in the last week so i don't know do you do you think he's living in alternate
reality too i guess
but i didn't hear the interview so i'm not going to speculate
tribal courts as well
lasting floyd on the perry tax plan you like the perry tax plan flat tax plan
you say that's not getting enough attention either
yeah well actually what i wrote the piece
east it's gotten some attention since i wrote the piece
and uh... you know i think uh...
yeah i think we need a flat
flattened the rates
uh... you know i liked the fact that in the perry plan up to thirty six thousand
dollars you don't pay taxes
and um... i like that huge personal exemption
and um...
uh... so it's it's it's a good plan i think uh... i think it it merits a full
hearing
and uh... you know this gets back to another one of my uh... pet peeves about
uh... the coverage
uh... and that is what they're trying to do partly to denies uh... herman kane i
think uh...
you know uh... of the political story that came out was
baseless it didn't have any
a any substance to it that india is just because i had to these are always needed
that so that there is not without your he's already admitted the political
report actually talked about that settlements and accusations that existed
it seems the political report was completely accurate
and now we're seeing a it yet i think a third story about herman cain but we're
we're getting a little bit off topic i don't buy that work we're going to get
that
on the topic of the perry tax plan then we have limited time left
uh... steve forbes has now come out and endorsed rick perry was steve forbes of
course very well known for his
fairtax flat tax plan
it got him twenty percent of the iowa straw poll voting ninety nine that's as
far as he got
is that not a sign that this idea of of rick perry's is going absolutely nowhere
i know that was a long time ago
and a different campaign uh... and uh...
so uh...
no i i don't think uh... i don't think that uh... you know he's he's going to
be hurt by this flat tax flat i'll stick gingrich has a great flat tax plan and
that's gotten virtually no coverage and by the current plan has gotten some
you know i i think americans are ready there's a there's a point in time when
americans are ready to get special interest politics out of the tax code
all right i mean i don't know if the politicians are ready for that those
lloyd reports have at home than ever
as they walk or power that's their goal in life
for reports dot com is the website floyd brown president of the national campaign
fund you know we're not agreeing on much but it's a good discussions i appreciate
talking to you
great to visit with you a call anytime