Under Rick Perry's flat tax plan, the rich will get richer, the federal government will get poorer, and the poor will stay pretty much where they are, according to the non-partisan Tax Policy Center. The center's study predicts that Perry's plan would cut government revenue by some 27%, costing it just under $1 trillion by 2015. The income of the top 0.1% of taxpayers would soar 37% under the plan, while the bottom 20% would be just 0.6% better off.
The plan "is exactly what you would expect out of a tax like this," a senior fellow at the center tells Reuters. The plan is "really redistributing income greatly toward the top end," he says. A spokeswoman for Perry's campaign says the center's report "confirms all income groups will be better off." Perry—who calls the plan "Cut, Balance, and Grow"—says the economic growth his plan would create would more than make up for government loss of revenue, leading to a balanced budget by 2020. (More tax policy stories.)