We retired Tax Justice Blog in April 2017. For new content on issues related to tax justice, go to www.justtaxesblog.org
The GOP’s 2012 platform contains many 
of the policies that you would expect from the party, such as calling for the extension of the Bush tax cuts and reducing corporate tax rates. Here we focus, however, on three planks in the platform that fall far outside the mainstream of tax policy.
(Our GOP platform review Part I, Same Old Supply Side Stuff, is here.)
1. Support for a Radical Constitutional Amendment to Restrict Taxes and Budgets
Following efforts by the House GOP last year to pass the most extreme balanced-budget amendment ever, the GOP platform calls for the passage of a constitutional amendment that would require that the federal government have a balanced budget, cap federal spending at its historical average share of GDP (around 18 percent), and require a super-majority for any tax increase (with an exception for war or national emergency). This kind of amendment poses all kinds of problems, not the least of which is that it would immediately cause unemployment to double (according to nonpartisan, private sector economists) and drive the economy into a deep recession. Balanced budget amendments in all their forms (including state level versions) are disastrous, because they essentially tie the hands of legislators and cripple government functions.
2. Nod to National Consumption Tax
Warning that we must “guard against hypertaxation of the American people,” the GOP platform says that the creation of a national sales tax or value-added tax (VAT) can only happen in conjunction with the repeal of the Sixteenth Amendment, which allowed for the federal income tax.
On the one hand, this plank is odd because a national sales tax or VAT is not a political possibility; even the hint of it prompted the US Senate to pass a resolution explicitly rejecting a VAT by an 85 to 13 vote just a couple of years ago. Anyway, the fear that a national consumption tax would lead to some sort of “hypertaxation” is unfounded. Its implementation in Canada (PDF) is a case study showing how overall taxes can actually decrease following the creation of a national consumption tax.
On the other hand, the existence of this plank in the GOP platform suggests that the Republican party’s establishment might actually be considering a radically regressive policy like the so-called “Fair Tax” (which is just a national sales tax) and elimination of the federal income tax (the primary source of fairness in the tax code and sustainable, sensible revenue source).
3. Opposition to a United Nations Global Tax
Perhaps the most inexplicable plank in the entire GOP platform is opposition to “any form of UN Global Tax.” While there are conspiracy theories, such as how the UN may very well invade in Texas in order to enforce its radical tax agenda during Obama’s second term, the reality is that no one takes the possibility of a UN global tax seriously. To be clear, there is no indication of support among US lawmakers to implement such a UN tax, nor does the UN have the power to impose one.