In 1998, when I was Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tax Analysis at the Treasury Department, I asked my staff expert on the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) how many people the EITC had lifted out of poverty. Her answer shocked me: technically, zero. Poverty statistics don’t account for the EITC or any other federal anti-poverty measure. [...]

The economy needs fixing, all agree. So naturally, every Republican presidential candidate has a plan for changing the federal tax system. Herman Cain has his 9-9-9 plan (or 9-0-9 if you’re low-income) and Rick Perry touts a 20 percent flat tax. Newt Gingrich would move to a consumption tax while Ron Paul would kiss the income [...]

David Walker, a former Government Accountability Office head, thinks it’s a problem that half of Americans don’t pay federal income taxes. At the June 22 IRS-Tax Policy Center Research Conference, he argued that more people ought to have “skin in the game” when it comes to paying these taxes so they will be invested in [...]

I disagree with former IRS Commissioner Don Alexander. Sometimes the IRS is the best, most efficient agency to administer a subsidy. And if we want to encourage low-income families to work—a key premise of welfare reform—refundable tax credits make a lot of sense.

I've just finished two terrific new books: High Wire: The Precarious Financial Lives of American Families by long-time LA Times reporter Peter Gosselin, and Hospital by Julie Salamon. In quite different ways, each illuminates some of the critical social policy issues of our time.