Giuliani Gets Nutty

The New York Times reports on Steve Forbes's endorsement of Rudy Giuliani. I'm sure it's nothing like a quid pro quo, just a coincidental change of heart that's suddenly led Rudy to reverse himself and endorse Forbes's pet crank cause: the flat tax, "something Mr. Giuliani denounced when Mr. Forbes was running for president."

It's good to know that when Giuliani goes around strenuously denouncing things, he doesn't really mean it. Everything Giuliani says is without prejudice to his right to completely contradict himself for later political advantage. To whit:

If there were no federal income tax, “maybe I’d suggest not doing it at all, but if we were going to do it, a flat tax would make a lot of sense,” Mr. Giuliani. [...]

In 1996, when Mr. Forbes first ran for president, Mr. Giuliani, then the mayor of New York City, disparaged a flat tax in general and Mr. Forbes’s plan in particular. The Forbes plan called for a single tax rate above a certain income, instead of several rates based on income. Mr. Giuliani said that a central part of the proposal, eliminating deductions, would hurt taxpayers in urban areas and reduce tax revenues for populous cities and states.

“You’re giving them more authority, more autonomy, and you’re giving them less resources to deal with the problems,” he said then in an interview with CBS, calling the proposal “a mistake.”

He used stronger language on CNN a few days later, saying the Forbes plan “would really be a disaster.”

Fire up the YouTubes. America's Mayor has performed a magnificent flying forward one-and-a-half somersault flip-flop. And he's landed in a pool of nuttiness.

Labels: 2008, flat tax, Presidential election, Rudy Giuliani, Steve Forbes

  ¶ Posted by Paul Curtis 9:02 AM