If you are a tax geek, or even a normal person who wants to keep up with the ongoing debate over restructuring the tax code, download a copy of the congressional Joint Tax Committee’s Tax Reform Working Group Report. It is 568 pages long, doesn’t have much of a plot, has no character development (unless you [...]

President Obama’s 2014 budget arrived two months late and was declared DOA by the House GOP leadership days before they even saw it. Yet, it is full of items of interest, including a new millionaire tax and a renewed proposal to limit the value of tax preferences for high income households. But what about the [...]

You probably read stories over the weekend about how the Senate passed a 2014 budget just before dawn on Saturday morning, a day after the House passed its version. The Senate action got particular attention since it was the first time in four years that the self-proclaimed World’s Greatest Deliberative Body actually approved a comprehensive [...]

The Senate Democrats’ budget, like the House version, rips unfair and inefficient tax preferences that litter the revenue code. But the tax provisions of the Senate budget, which is being debated on the floor today, raise at least two big problems: They see flaws in only in those tax expenditures that benefit high-income households and big [...]

The political response to the Tax Policy Center’s analysis of House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) fiscal plan was predictable, and mostly based on caricatures of what TPC actually concluded. To review: TPC found that tax cuts similar to those described in the committee’s plan would add $5.7 trillion to the budget deficit over [...]

If you’re discussing tax policy with someone who asserts that his or her point is “just common sense,” this could indicate one of two things: Either no deep thought is required—as the person would have you believe. Or no deep thought has been applied. The “common sense” notion that capital income taxes hinder growth seems [...]

House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan (R-WI) has proposed a controversial  plan to balance the budget in 10 years, entirely by cutting planned spending by $4.6 trillion. While Ryan includes lots of specific spending cuts, his tax agenda is far less clear.    In some respects, the former GOP vice presidential candidate mimics the tactics [...]

States trying to decide whether to expand their Medicaid programs to cover more low-income uninsured might want to take a look at the fate of a more obscure federal program—cash subsidies to state and local governments that sell certain kinds of bonds, especially Build America  Bonds. If they do, they’ll see what happens to a [...]

I suspect that by early next week, the sequester will be old news. We’ll be on to the next crisis—the impending government shutdown scheduled for just a month from now. And there may be good reason for that—any deal to avoid the shutdown will almost surely replace the effects of the sequester, at least for [...]

House Republicans say they want to balance the budget in a decade with only spending cuts and no tax hikes. In his state of the union address tonight, President Obama—perhaps channeling his new pal New Jersey Governor Chris Christie—had a response. In a word, fuhgedaboutit. Obama’s priorities: Gun control and immigration reform, along with a [...]