Lessons from the Flat Tax

Published February 22. 2022

In the 1980s, simplifying America’s tax code provided better incentives to work, save, and invest. Wanting to go even further, Alvin Rabushka and Bob Hall proposed a flat tax. Though it was not adopted in America, countries that have implemented the flat tax have seen less tax avoidance and more tax revenue.

Discussion Questions

  1. Could a flat tax work in America?
  2. Why does a simplified tax code provide better incentives to work, save, and invest?

Additional Resources

  • Read Alvin Rabushka and Robert Hall’s book The Flat Tax free. Available here.
  • Watch “What We Learned About 70% Tax Rates 50 Years Ago” on PolicyEd. Available here.
  • Watch “Why Tax Rates Matter More than Taxes” on PolicyEd. Available here.

Cast

Alvin Rabushka

Alvin Rabushka

Related

Event

Money and Power: Historical Lessons for Stablecoins and U.S Dollar Dominance

The Hoover Institution Economic Policy Working Group hosted “Money and Power: Historical Lessons for Stablecoins and U.S Dollar Dominance” with Michael D. Bordo, the Duncan Stewart Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution.

April 23, 2026

Articles

We Just Created More Than 1,000 Synthetic Controls To Study California's $20 Fast Food Minimum Wage

Synthetic control methods hold the promise of identifying a credible counterfactual by closely reproducing pretreatment outcome paths. Their reliability, however, depends in part on how effectively they constrain researchers’ less-visible degrees of freedom. We explore these methods’ sensitivity by constructing 1440 plausibly defensible specifications to estimate the employment effect of California’s $20 fast-food minimum wage. While over 96 percent of the estimated employment effects are negative, the range is vast, illustrating that synthetic control methods are sensitive to specification choice.

October 30, 2026

Articles

Government Waste, Fraud, And Abuse

Waste, fraud, and abuse of public funds are among the oldest and most persistent issues in American history.

September 16, 2026