Jerry Brown's flat tax

Jerry Brown supported a flat tax, which made him appear more conservative than Bill Clinton, but Brown's point was that the rich exploit so many loopholes that they would actually contribute more to the treasury with a flat tax, even if it is not progressive. Benefits to interest groups could be handled as expenditures rather than complicated tax deductions, and we could have scrapped the arcane U.S. tax code. I was super-energized for Jerry Brown, and probably spent too much time volunteering on his insurgent presidential campaign in 1992.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1992-04-01/news/9201300018_1_flat-tax-tax-deadline-income-tax