Fox News host Chris Wallace on Sunday grilled Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson’s plan to institute a flat tax plan that experts have said would give a massive break to the wealthiest Americans.
Carson said that under his flat tax plan, earners would “pay according to your ability.”
“I got that idea, quite frankly, from the Bible – tithing,” he explained. “You make $10 billion a year, you pay a billion. You make $10 a year, you pay one. You get the same rates. That’s pretty darn fair if you ask me.”
“Now some people say poor people can’t afford to pay that dollar. That’s very condescending,” he continued. “I can tell you that poor people have pride too. And they don’t want to be just taken care of.”
“Doctor, here is the problem with the flat tax in the real world,” Wallace noted. “According to the Tax Policy Center, to raise the same amount of revenue we do now, the tax rate would have to be in the low to mid 20 percent range. Low and middle income families would get a big tax hike while wealthy families would actually get a big tax cut.”