Texas Gov. Rick Perry said in a speech to the Western Republican Leadership Conference Wednesday that he is embracing a flat tax as part of his economic plan.

He said the plan "starts with scrapping the three million words of the current tax code" and would "make the tax code so simple that even Timothy Geithner can file his taxes on time" - a dig at the Treasury secretary whose tax issues complicated his confirmation in 2009.  But Mr. Perry didn't have much more to say than that, deferring the details of his economic proposal until an unveiling event Tuesday in South Carolina.