Repeating
what other colonial powers have done in times past, instituting policies or
systems not possible to do on the home front, the US imposes a flat tax on
Iraq that might be the equivalent of a Superbowl ad: great marketing for a
huge audience. KWC
U.S.
Administrator Imposes Flat Tax System on Iraq
By Dana Milbank and
Walter Pincus, Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, November 2, 2003; Page
A09 @ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50031-2003Nov1.html
The
flat tax, long a dream of economic conservatives, is finally getting its day
-- not in the United States, but in Iraq.
It
took L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator in Baghdad, no more than a stroke
of the pen Sept. 15 to accomplish what eluded the likes of publisher Steve
Forbes, Reps. Jack Kemp (R-N.Y.) and Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.), and Sen. Phil
Gramm (R-Tex.) over the course of a decade and two presidential
campaigns.
"The
highest individual and corporate income tax rates for 2004 and subsequent
years shall
not exceed 15 percent,"
Bremer wrote in Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number 37, "Tax Strategy
for 2003," issued last month.
Voilą!
Iraq has a flat tax, and the 15 percent rate is even lower than Forbes (17
percent) and Gramm (16 percent) favored for the United States. And, unless a
future Iraqi government rescinds it, the flat tax will remain long after the
Americans have left.
"It's
extremely good news," said Grover
Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform and a Bush
administration ally. Bremer's vaguely
worded edict
leaves open the possibility that Iraqis could face different levels of
taxation below 15 percent, but "they told me it's a flat rate and it appears
as though it's a flat rate," Norquist said. The tax fighter added:
"It
might be a hint to the rest of us."
Bremer's
new economic policy for Iraq will slash Saddam Hussein's top tax rate for
individuals and businesses from 45 to 15 percent. Of course, since Hussein's
government, like others in the Middle East, almost never enforced tax
collection, there
is no real history of paying taxes in the country.
Bremer's
statement in the following excerpt from Joel Brinkley's piece in today's NYT
is coded language for:
"We're getting the hell out of here. Our
soldiers are at the point of mutiny. Americans are going to turn aginst Bush
with vengeance quite soon unless we leave. We'll concoct a Constitution and
fling it at the Iraqis and let them get on with it. Never mind that Saddam
Hussein has not been caught. Never mind that the Constitution will not resolve
the problem of the relationship between the Sunnis and the Shias, nor that
between the Kurds and Turkey. We're getting out because Bush won't have a
snowflake in hell's chance of re-election if this goes on for much
longer."
When the Americans get out of Iraq by the spring there'll very
likely be a bloodbath and either the Sunnis + Saddam's Fedayeen will win or
the Shias will win. It's as simple and messy as that unless -- and it's very
big unless -- the Iranians invade Iraq and occupy the southern part of the
country in order to protect the Shias.
As far as the American energy
situation is concerned, the country will be back to where they were a year
ago, having to rely on Saudi Arabia as their main Middle East oil sujppliers.
And SA is just about the most unstable country in the world right now. (See my
posting of the interview with Prince Turki from this week-end's Financial Times Magazine.)
Keith
Hudson
<<<<
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 1 -- Almost every sector
of life in Baghdad was off kilter on Saturday, usually a normal business day
here, because of anonymous warnings that hospitals, schools and other
unspecified sites would be the targets of bombings.
Residents kept
their children home from school. The United States military kept most soldiers
in their barracks, and shopkeepers complained that they had no
business.
After one of the worst weeks of violence here in months, L.
Paul Bremer III, the special representative for Iraq, said the American
strategy for quelling the attacks was to "encourage Iraqis to play a central
role" in securing the nation.
>>>>