>"...Brown's Laffer-devised flat tax + VAT scheme..."
>
>I remember his proposal for a flat tax, but not any VAT (value added
>tax)...was that something added later? at the time, his notion, which
>also proposed ending the social security tax deduction( the biggest
>chunk out of many paychecks), didn't sound bad to me - a wage earner
>among a majority who would have done better under such a system, at
>least as it sounded ...
>
>and since it never got anywhere, dumped on by right and left, I wonder
>...in fact, it sounded very much like the origin of the income tax
>system, in which most people didn't pay anything, since taxes began at a
>relatively high bracket, excluding the majority of workers....
>
>please explain the connection of brown's flat tax to Laffer/VAT...
A VAT was part of his plan from the beginning. For details, and much else, see <http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Jerry-Brown.html>.
Doug