It has become conventional wisdom in Washington that the just-announced retirement of Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) boosts chances for tax reform in the short term. I’m not so sure. The upbeat argument goes like this: By announcing that he will not run for reelection in 2014, Baucus is free from the pressures of [...]

Housing industry lobbyists often make the case that, whatever you think of the mortgage interest deduction, now would be a terrible time to eliminate or restructure the subsidy. After all, they say, the housing market remains so shaky that ending the deduction would send home prices back into a tailspin. However, there is a contrary [...]

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 [...]

Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) has created quite a stir with his estimates that every household below the poverty level receives an average of $168-a-day (or about $61,000-a-year) in government welfare. Sessions’ calculations are extremely controversial and overstate the amount of government assistance for those in poverty. But for the sake of argument, let’s assume he’s right. [...]

Upward mobility has been a foundation of America’s self-image since the 18th century. If you work hard enough, nothing can stop you from getting ahead. That, at least in the minds of many Americans, is what distinguishes us from much of the rest of the world. Yet, according to my always-provocative Tax Policy Center colleague [...]

When we talk about the federal budget, we usually rely on the government’s official definition of “spending” which is to say the amount of money that’s run through federal agencies. But, in reality, the federal government spends a lot more than that. Using a broader definition of spending, which includes hundreds of billions in dollars [...]

What would fundamental changes in the federal tax code mean for state and local governments? Would it limit their ability to raise or borrow money? Would it make their revenue systems more or less progressive or even work more smoothly? Last Friday, I participated in a joint Tax Policy Center and UCLA Law School conference [...]

It turns out that President Obama’s plan to limit the benefit of itemized deductions is much more than that. Not only would it reduce tax savings for mortgages, charitable gifts, high medical costs, and the like, it would also curb tax breaks for owners of municipal bonds, workers who buy health insurance, and those who earn [...]

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 [...]

As my Tax Policy Center colleague Donald Marron noted the other day, trying to sort through the various baselines in the Gang of Six’s bipartisan Senate budget plan is amusing, but not necessarily helpful. So, I’m going to take a different look: How much money would the government collect over the next decade under the [...]