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2010-04-11 Economy
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Tax Reform and/or Tax Hikes
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With every passing day, it is becoming clearer that next year the issue of paying for the government will be back at the center of political debate. There will be a head start on the discussion this summer or fall, because some of the expiring Bush tax cuts which I mock farther down must be extended. But the hangover from the Great Recession and the lagging unemployment numbers will make it impossible to focus on improving the Internal Revenue Code.
Except as he suggests at the end of his editorial.
Douglas Elmendorf, the head of the Congressional Budget Office, confirmed that his economists have begun studying how to write a value-added tax, a form of national sales tax, because of growing congressional interest in drafting such a measure.
Elmendorf reminded the journalists of the grim news contained in his agency's analysis of President Obama's budget proposals. Agreeing with Bernanke that the current course is "unsustainable," he said that unless something changes, the government will emerge from the Obama years spending an amount equivalent to 25 percent of the gross domestic product while taking in revenue equal to only 19 percent of the GDP.
Some Senate Republicans greeted last week's hints of coming tax hikes with predictable grumbling, as if they had nothing to do with creating the deficits in the years when they were authorizing wars and cutting tax rates.
But the good news is that retiring Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, the senior Republican member of the Budget Committee, is setting a good example for his party by teaming up with Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, always the most bipartisan of Democrats, on a bill that could become a model for next year.
Rather than raising taxes, it reforms them in the interest of simplification and fairness, lowering the overall rates in most cases while eliminating loopholes. That kind of approach has not been taken since the tax bill of 1986, a collaboration of Republicans Ronald Reagan, James Baker, Dick Darman and Bob Packwood with Democrats led by Bill Bradley.
Well, that doesn't fit 0's agenda. Besides, bipartisan is so 80's. 
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Posted by Bobby 2010-04-11 15:04||
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Posted by Gomez Threter7450 2010-04-11 19:08||
2010-04-11 19:08||
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