Now that you mention it, Jonathan, I think the Journal is wrong about Thompson’s tax plan too. I think it is a mistake, as a matter of both politics and policy, to increase the share of taxes paid by families. It is also a little odd for the Journal to dismiss Huckabee’s sales tax as politically impossible while simultaneously criticizing Giuliani for not going after the deductions for charitable contributions and mortgage interest. I don’t like the mortgage-interest deduction myself, but getting rid of it should be way down the list of conservative priorities.
It is interesting to note that both Romney and McCain seem, for some reason, to have felt a constraint in coming up with their tax plans that Giuliani and Thompson didn’t. The Romney and McCain plans are modest and could conceivably be enacted by a Congress (if not this Congress), while the Giuliani and Thompson plans could never be enacted.