Rick Perry just completed the most incoherent, incomprehensible press conference I have ever heard. Ostensibly it was on his flat-tax plan, yet over and over again he hammered the idea that what Americans want most are jobs, and it is government regulation of private enterprise that is killing those jobs.
Why, then, this urgent need for a flat tax? Anyone's flat tax? According to Perry, all government need do is eradicate regulations and all would be economically well.
Needless to say, not one of the gagglers asked Perry about this enormous contradiction. One asked about the birther issue, on which Perry was even more incomprehensible (something about seeing his birth certificate being irrelevant to national needs). Another, to the reporter's credit, asked Perry how he can cut $1 trillion a year (required to achieve government spending at 18 percent of GDP) when Congress' supercommittee can't seem to locate $1 trillion to cut over 10 years. Perry's answer, in effect: Not to worry, the horrifying enormity of his economic plan wouldn't fully kick in until 2020.
The press conference was both laughable and immensely depressing. How anyone of Perry's minuscule virtues could be regarded as a legitimate prospect for the U.S. presidency is simply beyond me.