Monday items: Tamny advises the GOP to advocate sound money; Moore, Kudlow and Forbes on Perry's tax plan; Lewis on downsizing banks.

From Forbes, John Tamny suggests President Obama can’t win if Republicans advocate sound money.

In The WSJ, Stephen Moore reports details of the Perry flat tax plan.

On NRO, Larry Kudlow argues the Dow likes the GOP tax debate.

In The NY Post, Steve Forbes praises Rick Perry’s flat tax.

On The WSJ site, James Taranto discusses Mitt Romney’s “guilty Republican syndrome”:

 

At New World Economics, Nathan Lewis reports from Utah’s monetary conference earlier this month.

On NWE, Lewis advocates a radical downsizing of US banks.

At RCM, Joe Calhoun challenges Matthew Yglesias’ claim that malinvestment doesn’t harm the economy.

In The WSJ, Paul Moreno argues the President’s blame-business strategy follows FDR’s 1937 example.

At AEI, Alan Reynolds discusses income trends over the last three decades:

 

In The Nation, Ari Berman explains how the "austerity class" dominates Washington.

The Washington Post, liberal EJ Dionne argues Republican tax proposals would raise taxes on the poor.

Monday items: Laffer on tax complexity; Williamson on the cost of upper income tax cuts; Taranto skewers Mondale.

In The WSJ, Art Laffer explains that tax compliance adds an additional 30% to the cost of federal taxes and advocates a flat tax to reduce complexity.

At NRO, Kevin Williamson reports that repealing the Bush tax cuts for higher earners would raise $80 billion per year, in the context of a $1.6 trillion annual deficit.

The Journal editorializes that raising taxes on the rich will have a modest impact on the budget.

Consider the Internal Revenue Service's income tax statistics for 2008, the latest year for which data are available. The top 1% of taxpayers—those with salaries, dividends and capital gains roughly above about $380,000—paid 38% of taxes. But assume that tax policy confiscated all the taxable income of all the "millionaires and billionaires" Mr. Obama singled out. That yields merely about $938 billion, which is sand on the beach amid the $4 trillion White House budget, a $1.65 trillion deficit, and spending at 25% as a share of the economy, a post-World War II record.

On TNR, Jonathan Chait counters Laffer with the claim that lower tax rates are not necessary to lower compliance costs.

From The WSJ, James Taranto skewers Walter Mondale’s call for higher tax rates.

Cato’s Alan Reynolds discusses tax rates on the Tara Servatius radio show.

At Econlog, David Henderson critiques one aspect of David Cay Johnston’s recent attack on supply-side economics.

But if he wanted to inform the reader without misleading, he would have presented the data on the percent of all federal taxes paid by the top 1 percent. In their book, Public Finance, 9th edition, Harvey S. Rosen and Ted Gayer, give a table showing that in 2005 [and things haven't changed much since then] the top one percent paid 27.6 percent of all federal taxes.

At COAL, Paul Krugman suggests the US can comfortably handle tax rates that absorb 23 percent of GDP, up from the historical 18.3 percent average.

On RCM, Joe Calhoun wonders if commodities have reached their top.

At Asia Times, David Goldman suggests the economy may lapse back to deflation. More on the theme, here.

Tuesday round up: Mundell opposes ECB's rate hike; Forbes critiques Merkel's policies; Kadlec counsels monetary reform as debt reform.

Bloomberg reports Robert Mundell opposes the ECB’s interest rate hike.

From Forbes, Steve Forbes critiques German Chancellor Merkel’s handling of the European debt crisis and counsels linking the euro to gold.

Also at Forbes, Charles Kadlec advises Speaker Boehner that without monetary reform it will be impossible to get the budget under control.

On The Kudlow Report, Gov. Mitt Romney (MA) talks about growth and jobs but is unimpressive on the dollar, rejects a flat tax, advocates a floating yuan, and emphasizes raising consumer spending:



From Forbes, Brian Domitrovic corrects Jonathan Chait’s repeated claim that George H.W. Bush called supply-side economics voodoo.

In The NYT, Speaker Boehner warns the President not to try to raise taxes.

At The WSJ, James Taranto notes the flaw in trying to balance the budget by taxing the rich.

On NRO, Larry Kudlow sees market turbulence ahead as the debt ceiling is debated.

Cato’s Dan Mitchell reports the IRS is enforcing foreign tax law:



In The Washington Times, Richard Rahn critiques the IRS code.

On Forbes, Ralph Benko suggests George Soros should focus on bottom up monetary reform.

From Alhambra Investments, Joe Calhoun foresees economic difficulty when QE2 ends.

In The WSJ, Charles Wolf Jr. takes an interesting look at economic, military and population statistics.