At the National Tax Association’s spring conference last week, former Congressional Budget Office Director Doug Holtz-Eakin laid out a path to tax reform in four simple, clear steps. Doug, who was also a top policy aide to the 2008 McCain for President campaign, was absolutely on point. And his analysis was both evidence of how [...]
Summer is here and that can mean only one thing – the start of movie season. Well, that and California’s annual budget mess. Like a tired franchise that keeps coming back, it’s the same story year after year, sometimes gussied up with computer generated effects or a surprise cameo appearance. On Saturday, Governor Jerry Brown [...]
Last week I argued that budgeting for Medicare’s hospital insurance program is flawed. Today, I offer two ways to fix it (and reject a third). Medicare Part A is one of several federal programs that control spending through a “belt and suspenders” combination of regular program rules (the belt) and an overall limit (the suspenders). But [...]
Listening to Barack Obama and John Boehner over the past few days put me in mind of two testosterone-addled 22-year olds preparing for a bar fight, rather than the President of the United States and the Speaker of the House discussing fiscal policy. First, Boehner kicked off this high-level “whose your mama” conversation by demanding [...]
Now that a once-obscure J.P. Morgan Chase derivatives trader named Bruno Iksil has become infamous as the London Whale, I suppose it is time to ask whether what he does should be subject to new taxes. The question predated Mr. Iksil’s misadventures, of course. Ever since the U.S. financial crash of 2008 and the beginnings of [...]
Robin, thanks for asking me back on Good Morning America to talk about my views on tax reform. After we spoke about gay marriage, I got to thinking about another deeply-held emotional issue that affects every American family. Well– you know, I have to tell you, as I’ve said, I’ve– I’ve been going through an [...]
The recent double-counting dispute isn’t just about politics; it also reveals a flaw in budgeting for Medicare Part A. Budget experts are waging a spirited battle over the Medicare changes that helped pay for 2010’s health reform. In April, Chuck Blahous, one of two public trustees of the program, released a study arguing that the [...]
Europe is undergoing a massive political upheaval. You may have noticed. Caught in the wake of deep recession, painfully high unemployment, bank failures, and growing demands for fiscal austerity by the bond markets, governments across the continent are collapsing. In November, voters in Spain dumped a Socialist government for the conservatives. Last weekend in France, [...]
Critics of the Buffett Rule often argue that the idea is hardly worth the trouble since it would raise taxes on less than a tenth of one percent of Americans and generate less than $5 billion a year. With annual deficits projected at 100 times that amount over the next decade, the additional revenue is [...]
These days, some people want to impose a new Buffett tax on millionaires while others are outraged that low income people pay no income taxes at all and still others want to cut taxes on “job creators.” All in the name of fairness. Is the tax code fair? Should it be? It all depends on what [...]