Santorum embraces millennial view of fair taxation during final Florida debate

Wes, I'm going to react briefly to last night's debate, but, if you will, do remember the question I raised in my previous post: On the heels of his State of the Union, what does President Obama do next to galvanize young people anew?

The Republicans didn't service themselves particularly well with young voters last night. In fact, they will find it more and more challenging to connect with them as they lurch further to the right on the now mainstream GOP plank of little-to-no taxation for the very rich.

If anyone championed a populist economic message yesterday that could sway the youth vote, it's actually the most socially-conservative Republican candidate: Rick Santorum. He grew up in the the most humble circumstances, the son of an Italian immigration, among the remaining GOP hopefuls.

In the debate, he proposed a tax overhaul as a simplification for working-class families, not as an elimination of the taxation commitment from the wealthy.

And so what I believe is we need to reduce taxes. I don't -- look, I'm honest. I don't reduce the higher -- top rate as much as these other folks do. I take the Reagan approach. Ronald Reagan had a 28 percent top rate. If it was good enough for Ronald Reagan, it's good enough for me. And that's what we put the top rate as. And -- and we have a bottom rate of 10 percent. I believe in a differential. I don't believe in a flat tax. I believe in a simplified tax code with five deductions and -- and focus on simplify, creating two rates.

I disagree with Newt also on this. I don't believe in a zero capital gains tax rate. I don't think you need to get to zero to make sure that there's an efficient deployment of capital and investment. I think, if you get to zero, then, in fact, guys like Mitt Romney, who, again, I give him -- I wish I made as much money as Mitt Romney, but...

On the subject of generational debt, he also articulates a central millennial concern: that D.C. pols are stealing Gen Y's future, by virtue of massive debt that will be impossible to pay off.  If he coupled this  with directly targeting young people's concerns, like rising college tuition, more directly, he would have a better shot at overtaking Paul or Gingrich's prowess with young voters.

But he he hasn't to date. In fact, young people have taken Santorum to task for his criticism of Obama's dream for all young people to graduate from college.

Once again, compared to the gravitas of Obama's State of the Union, the Republicans looked more trivial than presidential on the stage last night. Overall, how did you, SCOOP2012 readers, assess the GOP's chatter on some of the domestic issues related to young people, ones the president raised in depth during this week's SOTU?