A wonderfully-titled new paper—The Tragedy of the Carrots—by Boston College law professor Brian Galle got me thinking about Solyndra, the failed solar panel company that has become something of  a poster child for botched industrial policy. By now, you probably know Solyndra’s sad tale. The firm got $537 million in federal loan guarantees from the [...]

PolitiFact’s Lou Jacobson recently pointed me to a blog post by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor complaining that President Obama’s proposal to limit itemized deductions would hurt soup kitchens—and their poor clients—by inducing rich people to give less to charities. That may be true, but Cantor’s own ideas about cutting taxes would do the same [...]

Last week I had the opportunity to testify before two Ways and Means subcommittees–Select Revenue Measures and Oversight–about the way our tax system is used as a tool of energy policy. Here are my opening remarks. You can find my full testimony here. As you know, our tax system is desperately in need of reform. It’s needlessly complex, economically [...]

I just came across this bar chart, which illustrates graphically why the tax code is such a mess.  The Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) is the official scorekeeper for all tax legislation passed by the Congress.  The chart shows the number of requests for estimates and other analysis that they’ve received from Congressional offices since [...]

After I wrote last week about Warren Buffett’s New York Times op-ed on the low tax rates paid by wealthy investors, Tax Policy Center visiting scholar Brian Galle pointed out that my graph showing the maximum tax rates Americans could pay was misleading. Actual tax rates, he noted, are much lower than what the graph [...]

It has become fashionable (I am happy to say) for  politicians to talk about ending or at least scaling back tax subsidies. But  pols mean very different things when they say this. And new analysis by the Tax  Policy Center shows that whether they help you or not often depends on how much  money you [...]

Sooner or later, Congress will realize it needs new revenues to help balance the budget, and trimming tax subsidies is the way to get them.  But will it tackle individual preferences, such as the mortgage interest deduction, one at a time? Or, will it try to limit the political bloodshed and go after these tax [...]

Much has been made of TPC’s estimate that fully 46 percent of Americans will pay no federal individual income tax this year. Commentators have often misinterpreted that percentage as indicating that nearly half of Americans pay no taxes. In fact, however, many of those who don’t pay income tax do pay other taxes—federal payroll and [...]

Give Sen. Tom Coburn(R-OK) credit. In a city where obfuscation and misdirection are the coin of the realm, the conservative Republican lets you know exactly where he stands. While most of his party remains mired in its  “job-killing tax increase” rhetoric, Coburn has no misgivings about eliminating tax subsidies and using the money to reduce [...]

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet.” William Shakespeare If I understand correctly, Congressional Republicans will not support job killing tax increases of any kind as part of a plan to reduce the federal deficit. They may, however, support non-job killing revenue raisers. Newspapers [...]