Tim Kelly: Ron Paul’s radical deal

  Several Republican presidential candidates have rolled out economic plans they claim will jumpstart the moribund U.S. economy and narrow the nation’s yawning fiscal gap.

  Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s plan creates an optional 20 percent flat income tax, restricts federal spending to 18 percent of GDP, and seeks a balanced budget by 2020. His plan also calls for lowering the corporate tax to 20 percent and ending other taxes, including the estate tax and taxes on many capital gains and Social Security benefits.

  Georgia businessman Herman Cain has enjoyed a recent surge in the polls after he proposed scrapping the entire federal tax code and replacing it with 9 percent taxes on corporate and personal incomes, and a 9 percent federal sales tax. The plan has come to be known as the “9-9-9 Plan.”