He may hate 9-9-9, but Rick Perry is all in favor of a national flat tax. The Texas governor announced today that he will propose one as part of his economic plan next week, reports the Weekly Standard. “I want to make the tax code so simple that even Timothy Geithner can file his taxes on time,” said Perry. He offered no details on how the tax would work in his address to the Western Republican Conference, but he said the overall plan also would call for a balanced budget amendment, entitlement reform, the abolishment of earmarks, and more energy exploration.
Perry recently enlisted Steve Forbes as an adviser, notes the New York Times, the same Steve Forbes who pushed for a flat tax on income in his 1996 run for the presidency. Perry didn't mention Mitt Romney in his brief speech, but he clearly had him in mind after their testy debate last night. "I am not the candidate of the establishment," he said. "You won’t hear a lot of shape-shifting nuance from me." (More Rick Perry 2012 stories.)