>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com>
>To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
>Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2003 4:41 PM
>Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Flogging a Dead Horse (was Hitch: Stay Strong)
>
>
>> I think I've mentioned this before, but after a Jerry Brown rally in
>> NYC in 1992 (at which the Ramones performed, and during which Joey
>> said "I never fucking voted in my fucking life but I'm fucking voting
>> for fucking Jerry Brown, man!"), I stepped into a nearby bar and ran
>> into CH, Andy Kopkind, Mike Tomasky, and a few other Nation types.
>> I'd been fighting with Alexander Cockburn over Brown's Laffer-devised
>> flat tax + VAT scheme,
>
>Why would any progressive favor such a tax system?
In Cockburn's case only because Brown supported it, and he liked Brown. He didn't understand the first thing about the concept (the regressive taxation of consumption and exemption of capital income) nor the execution ("a flat tax can be progressive," he argued).
Doug