Today’s decision by the two Republican participants to withdraw from negotiations led by Vice President Biden to reach a deficit-reduction package, saying they won’t go for tax increases, would seem to put President Obama and congressional Democrats on the defensive. It doesn’t have to. At first blush, Republicans seem to have the upper hand. The …
Winston Churchill may have said it best about his fond friends: “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.” On fiscal policy, we Americans have long been “trying everything else.” We’ve cut taxes and boosted spending for at least a decade, turning surpluses into deficits that …
Continue reading “Moving in the Right Direction on Deficits”
While Washington frets that gridlock over budget deficits will hurt the economy in the long run, policymakers have apparently forgotten that gridlock can produce economic harm in all sorts of ways. Take trade. The Wall Street Journal reported that, in Colombia, lawmakers have voted for legislation that will “open the floodgates to trade with China.” …
Continue reading “Other Nations Now Side Stepping U.S. on Trade”
Will history judge today’s national leaders in the same way that it has judged former Senators Reed Smoot and Willis C. Hawley – as well-intentioned but misguided policymakers who helped send the economy further into the ditch? Smoot and Hawley? They sponsored legislation, which President Herbert Hoover signed in mid1930, which raised tariffs on more …
Continue reading “Biden Gang: This Generation’s Smoot-Hawley?”
Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty’s budget speech this week was a masterful combination of bluster and sleight-of-hand, one that promised candor while selling snake oil. “I promised to level with the American people,” he says early on, noting that he has called for phasing out ethanol subsidies that largely benefit the first-in-the-nation caucus state of …
Continue reading “Pawlenty Selling Snake Oil for a Budget Plan”
Today’s front-page piece in the Washington Post about the Republican evolution to no-tax absolutism showcases how profoundly unserious, infantile, and destructive the Republican Party has become on fiscal policy. At its most basic level, budgeting is simple. Policymakers must decide what the federal government should do – from defending the nation to promoting economic growth …
Interest is growing in tax policy circles in a new round of tax reform, with many experts hoping the White House and Congress will enact legislation that’s roughly modeled on the landmark Tax Reform Act of 1986. Before moving too far down that path, however, they might want to keep in mind how different the …
Continue reading “Simplify the Tax Code, But Leave 1986 Out of It”