Not a peep?

I thought we learned from Steve Forbes's failed run at the presidency in 1996 that a flat tax was a bad idea. Does anyone else remember this? Forbes was pushing a tax rate of 17% across the board as an income tax as his method to simplify the tax code, which is an election issue for every presidential candidate.

When people pointed out that Forbes's personal income taxes would fall by half, which happened at pretty much every single news conference, he'd say things like, "Yes, I am aware of that." And when people would point out that the tax rate for people earning less than, at the time, about 25,000 USD per year would nearly double, he'd say things like, "Well, maybe we could graduate the rate a bit." It should be noted that what we have now is a graduated tax rate, and that this is precisely the sort of thing that simplifying the tax code is supposed to avoid.

And so the Flat Tax fell to the wayside, along with Forbes's presidential ambitions.

Until yesterday.

President George W. Bush announced that he was happy with the way that Bratislava had implemented their own tax code changes, which included a flat tax (story here). As a matter of fact, the President almost drooled over the idea of a flat tax, which as in the case of Mr. Forbes would cut his and his family's personal income tax payments by half, while increasing tax payments for less-filthy-rich Americans.

And, of course, the Democratic party has been dead silent on the issue.

I recognize that the Republican Party has far more money than the Democrats, and that the Democrats really aren't in a position to do things like make major nationwide ad buys. But just as in every other case where the President has done something stupid, the Party has remained silent. Not even so much as a news release.

Dr. Howard Dean was elected to the Democratic Party chairmanship to add vitality to a party that has been too beltway for too long. So where's the fire?