Taxes:
Create a flat tax with a rate around 17% and a ceiling of $25,000. Also, allow for a $5,000 deduction for each dependent.
If there is a ceiling then it isn't a flat tax, indeed you've made it a very regressive tax. A person who makes $1,000,000 pays only a 4% tax under your proposal.
I favor a true flat tax of Z% with the only deductions being a refundable one of $X per household plus $Y per dependent for someone who works full time (defined as 2,000 hours per year) and pro-rated for those who work less than that. (X, Y, and Z adjusted to provide both a guarantee of a living wage and sufficient tax revenue to meet expenses.) The corporate income tax would be the same as the individual tax rate, and have no deductions either. No capital gains tax, mainly because of the extensive record keeping it requires rather than its effect on the economy. The tax system should be simple enough to put H&R Block out of business and require only that records from the tax year itself be at hand.
As far as excise taxes go, the carbon tax and sin taxes are both good. The carbon tax should start small and keep increasing slowly with other taxes going down in response until the desired CO2 target is met or we run out of other taxes to cut.
