Lagging badly in the polls, GOP presidential candidate Jon Huntsman Jr. turned his attention to jobs Wednesday afternoon, unveiling a plan to jump-start the economy by revising the tax code, repealing financial regulations and opening up foreign markets. 
 
 Huntsman’s speech at Gilchrist Metal Fabricating, a manufacturing plant in Hudson, N.H., was his first major address since he announced his candidacy in June. It came as President Obama and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney are set to release their own detailed jobs plans next week. 
 
 Called “Time to Compete,” the speech aimed to catapult Huntsman into the economic debate among the top-tier candidates and give his campaign some much-needed traction. 
 
 “There is no more urgent priority at this point in our nation’s history than creating jobs and strengthening our economic core; everything else revolves around it,” he said. “Meeting our challenges will require serious solutions, but above all, it will require serious leadership — a quality in high demand in our nation’s capital and among my opponents on the campaign trail.” 
 
 Huntsman’s plan calls for eliminating taxes on capital gains and dividends, lowering the business tax rate, and instituting a tax holiday for repatriating corporate profits earned overseas. 
 
 Addressing regulations, Huntsman said he would repeal Obama’s health-care plan — all of his Republican rivals have vowed to do the same if elected — as well as the Dodd-Frank bill, which increased oversight of the financial sector. 
 
 Huntsman also took aim at the Environmental Protection Agency, which his opponents have also targeted, saying, “We must end the EPA’s serious regulatory overreach.” 
 
 As governor of Utah, Huntsman backed a “cap and trade” plan to limit greenhouse gases, but he has since backed away from that position. 
 
 In recent days, Huntsman, who served as Obama’s ambassador to China, has been more aggressive with his rivals, especially Texas Gov. Rick Perry. He has slammed Perry for his views on evolution and climate change. 
 
 Huntsman’s campaign has been dogged by infighting and high-level staff departures, and his more moderate brand of GOP politics has largely fallen flat — polls show him in the low single digits, far behind his rivals. 
 
 In releasing a jobs plan before Obama and Romney do, Huntsman sought to grab a head start on what will be the key issue in the battle for the White House. 
 
 He had harsh words for his former boss, saying he would make free-trade agreements a top priority. 
 
 “On each of these points and more outlined in our American Jobs Plan, President Obama’s economic record has been marked by failure. As the Obama administration has dithered, other nations are making the choices necessary to compete in the 21st century,” he said. “President Obama won in 2008 on hope. We’re going to win in 2012 on solutions.” 
 
 Over the next week, Huntsman will continue to campaign in New Hampshire, where he has built a large campaign operation but faces stiff competition from Romney and Perry. 
 
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 HUDSON, N.H. - Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman yesterday advocated a dramatic restructuring of the tax code in a way that will help businesses but could hurt those earning lower incomes by getting rid of tax breaks for mortgages or for low-income workers. 
 
 The tax code overhaul plan, modeled after Ronald Reagan’s 1986 tax reform package, would lower the corporate and individual tax rates while broadening the base of taxpayers by eliminating loopholes. Huntsman would also eliminate capital gains and dividends taxes. 
 
 “Our tax code is too complex, our rates are too high, and the tax burden is carried by too few,’’ Huntsman wrote in his plan. 
 
 The tax code overhaul was one part of Huntsman’s jobs plan, which also focused on regulatory reform, energy independence, and free trade. Huntsman, a former Utah governor and ambassador to China, announced the plan surrounded by metal presses at Gilchrist Metal Fabricating, a machining and manufacturing company, a symbolic location as Huntsman called for an increase in American manufacturing. 
 
 Huntsman predicted that the American people will “revert back to a system that believes in capitalistic traditions, the free market, innovation, and empowers entrepreneurs.’’ 
 
 So far, Huntsman has remained in the low single digits in polls nationally and in New Hampshire, the first-in-the-nation primary state. The jobs plan could be Huntsman’s opportunity to increase his standing as a candidate and get his ideas out before Republican candidate Mitt Romney and President Obama, a Democrat, release their plans next week. 
 
 In addition to offering his ideas, Huntsman used the speech to criticize Obama for a lack of leadership. “The president believes that we can tax and spend and regulate our way to prosperity,’’ Huntsman said. “We cannot. We must compete our way to prosperity.’’ 
 
 He continued: “As the Obama administration has dithered, other nations are making the choices necessary to compete in the 21st century.’’ 
 
 Huntsman said he would repeal both Obama’s health care overhaul and the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory reform that Congress passed in reaction to the financial crisis. 
 
 — Shira Schoenberg 
 
 Counterterrorism veteran named FBI deputy director WASHINGTON - A 24-year FBI veteran with extensive counterterrorism experience, Sean Joyce, has been named the law enforcement agency’s deputy director. 
 
 Elevated to the No. 2 post within the FBI by Director Robert Mueller, Joyce replaces Timothy Murphy, who is retiring after 23 years with the bureau. 
 
 Since last year, Joyce has been executive assistant director of the national security branch, responsible for the FBI’s national security and intelligence operations. 
 
 He earned the Attorney General’s Award for Exceptional Service in 2004 for work on a counterterrorism squad in Dallas. In 2008, he was named chief of the counterterrorism division’s international terrorism operations section, with responsibility for international terrorism matters within the United States. 
 
 — Associated Press 
 
 Party donations up, with Democrats holding edge WASHINGTON - The country’s two political parties saw an uptick in donations this election cycle, with Democrats enjoying a 22 percent fund-raising edge over Republicans ahead of next year’s election, new federal data show. 
 
 Democratic committees, including the party’s national, congressional, and Senate committees, raised more than $128 million during the first seven months of this year. That compares with Republicans’ $105 million in contributions as GOP leaders try to counter the cash flow supporting President Obama’s bid for a second term. 
 
 — Associated Press 
 
 © Copyright 2011 Globe Newspaper Company. 

 Economy Huntsman Proposes New Taxes On Seniors And Veterans To Pay For Tax Cut For The Richest 0.1 Percent 
 
 Our guest blogger is Seth Hanlon, director of Fiscal Reform for the Doing What Works project at the Center for American Progress Action Fund. 
 
 2012 GOP presidential hopeful Jon Huntsman is releasing an economic plan today that is as bad for the middle-class — and as nutty — as any proposed by his rivals. It would pay for a half-million-dollar tax break for the richest 0.1 percent of Americans with tax increases on the middle-class and new taxes on seniors, veterans, and poor families. 
 
 In an apparent attempt to eclipse all previous Republican giveaways, including the disastrous Bush tax cuts, Huntsman would drop the marginal rate paid by the richest Americans by more than a third to 23 percent — a lower rate than rich people paid during the Coolidge and Hoover Administrations or any time since. He would also eliminate all taxes on all capital gains and dividend income — the primary forms of income for the wealthiest Americans. 
 
 Huntsman says he will pay for this supply-side bonanza by eliminating all so-called “tax expenditures.” He probably borrowed the idea from a theoretical scenario described by the President’s Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (aka, the deficit commission). The Commission observed that if all tax expenditures were eliminated, income tax rates could, in theory, be consolidated into three brackets: 8, 14, and 23 percent — the same as what Huntsman proposed today. 
 
 But the Commission only offered that scenario as a thought experiment, not as a serious proposal. In fact, no one has seriously proposed to eliminate all tax expenditures because doing so would punish seniors, the middle-class, poor families, and veterans, among others. 
 
 Huntsman either hasn’t thought through — or doesn’t want people to know — what eliminating all tax expenditures would actually mean. So let’s take a look at the official tax expenditure list and see what would happen if we got rid of all of them: 
 
 — All Social Security benefits would become taxable. Senior citizens that currently receive the average Social Security benefit as their primary income source (as is the case for most seniors) currently pay no income taxes on those benefits, but would under Huntsman’s plan. — Many middle-class parents would lose child tax credits and tax benefits for education and child care that are more valuable to them than a tax rate cut. — Huntsman’s tax plan would also eliminate the employer health insurance exclusion, which helps enable some 160 million Americans get coverage through their jobs. — One of the most successful pro-work, anti-poverty initiatives, the Earned Income Tax Credit, would be abolished. — Veterans pensions and disability benefits would become subject to tax, as would all military combat pay, military housing allowances and meals, workers compensation payments, public assistance benefits, and state foster care payments. 
 
 This is just a partial list of the harsh and/or bizarre consequences that would occur if all tax expenditures were eliminated to fund a huge giveaway to the very rich. 
 
 According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, on the whole, middle-class families would be forced to pay $1,890 in higher taxes under the no-tax expenditure plan compared to what they pay now. They would even pay $738 more than what they would pay if all the Bush tax cuts expired. Meanwhile, because they benefit the most from the lower rates, the richest 1 percent would get a $7,000 tax cut under the no-tax expenditure plan compared to letting the Bush tax cuts expire. Edited to clarify the different baselines in use. Thanks @jbarro. 
 
 For the super-rich, the biggest bonanza comes from Huntsman’s pledge to eliminate all capital gains and dividend taxes — which would give the richest 1 percent an average tax cut of $75,000 and the richest 0.1 percent an average tax cut of $486,000. 
 
 In light of all this, maybe people should stop calling Huntsman the “serious” Republican candidate.
– Languishing in polls, Jon Huntsman veered to the right yesterday, laying out a sweeping economic plan that would scrap a variety of regulations, slash taxes dramatically for the wealthy, and eliminate loopholes. “Our tax code is too complex, our rates are too high, and the tax burden is carried by too few,” Huntsman wrote in the plan, according to the Boston Globe. He called for eliminating all “tax expenditures,” in order to lower tax rates, creating three brackets, taxed at 8%, 14%, and 23%. Taxes on the wealthy haven’t been that low since before the Coolidge Administration, Think Progress points out. Huntsman also proposes eliminating the capital gains tax entirely, another boon to the wealthy. Middle class families, meanwhile, would be hit with an average $1,890 more in taxes a year, while seniors would be taxed on Social Security income and veterans on their pensions and disability benefits. Huntsman also wants to eliminate Obamacare, Dodd-Frank financial reform bill, and the EPA’s “serious regulatory overreach,” the Washington Post reports.