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September 7, 2012

GOP state Senate candidate Smith visits

By Keith Gushard Meadville Tribune

MEADVILLE — Reformation of the nation’s tax code, including a flat tax rate on all earners, is where Tom Smith wants to start if he becomes Pennsylvania’s next U.S. senator.

Smith, 64, a Republican from Armstrong County, was at Channellock Inc., the Meadville-based maker of pliers and other hand tools, Thursday afternoon to tout the economic plan he’ll promote if elected. Smith squares off against incumbent Democrat Bob Casey on Nov. 6.

“We need big government out of the way,” said Smith. “It has grown so big, so cumbersome.”

Smith said simplifying the tax code would be a way to start growing the economy again.

He said the Internal Revenue Service tax code with its more than 70,000 pages is “more than 10 times the length of the Bible with none of the good news.”

“We’ve been talking about it for years (with nothing done), Smith said of the tax code. “Both parties have some blame they’ll have to share on this.”

He said a way to simplify the tax code would be imposition of a flat tax and closure of loopholes, but Smith declined to specify what he thought the flat tax rate should be.

Smith’s economic plan also calls for less federal regulation of business, passage of a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget set at no more than 20 percent of gross domestic product and repeal of the Affordable Care Act. commonly known as Obamacare.

All of it would be done to get the economy moving forward and foster job growth, Smith said.

“Expansion right now is out of the question for business, it’s survival mode,” Smith said of the government’s current economic policies.

Smith, a former coal company executive, knows what it takes to start, run and grow a business, according to William DeArment, Channellock’s president and chief executive officer. That knowledge would be useful in government, according to DeArment.

“Tom Smith gets it,” DeArment said, backing an overhaul of the nation’s tax code because “it’s ambiguous, it’s draconian and it’s flawed.”

“It rewards consumption and penalizes production, success and productivity,” DeArment said of the nation’s tax code in his introduction of Smith.

Changes coming to the nation’s health care system under the Affordable Care Act may limit access to doctors, according to DeArment.

The Obama administration also doesn’t have a plan for manufacturers in the U.S. nor a viable energy plan for the nation offering incentives to utilize natural gas in both the manufacturing sector and in vehicle fleets, according to DeArment.



Keith Gushard can be reached at 724-6370 or by email at kgushard@meadvilletribune.com.

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