Tag: tax reform

To the Mondale-Phone!

Ezra Klein, 2010:The argument for taxing people who make more than $250,000 isn’t that they’re bad people, and it isn’t that they won’t notice the tax increase. It’s that we’ve got a very large budget imbalance, and we’re going to need to do a lot of things to correct it. Taxes on the rich have dropped even as the incomes of the rich have skyrocketed. So one of the obvious things to do is update the tax code to correct for that drift. But eventually, we’ll need to do much more than just increases taxes on the rich, and though politicians have tried to sell this one as a change that most Americans won’t notice and needn’t worry about, eventually, they’re going to have to start talking about changes that people will notice, and should worry about.
Walter Mondale, 1984: By the end of my first term, I will reduce the Reagan budget deficit by two-thirds. Let’s tell the truth. It must be done, it must be done. Mr. Reagan will raise taxes, and so will I. He won’t tell you. I just did.
Lemkin, 2010: Oh for those heady, brutally honest days of the first Mondale administration.

So the next question is simply, “What do the experts on your staff tell you that the top marginal tax rate should be in order to maximize tax revenues, leaving everything else about the tax code the same?” Journalists should relentlessly ask it of the Republican leadership in Congress who continue to make fallacious claims, and the Democratic leadership in Congress ought to ask it politely in a letter to CBO Director Doug Elmendorf.

Andrew Samwick, nailing the Laffer Curve. Add to the list of things an agile Democratic party could positively eviscerate the GOP with by attacking their perceived strengths and, you know, turning them into colossal weaknesses. See: Marriage, getting the government completely out of.

The Media’s Obsession with Tax Reform

KRUGMAN: No, I think it’s fair enough. But, you know, let me ask — there’s something I don’t understand about this whole thing. There are actually two major investigations of members of Congress underway right now. There’s Charlie Rangel, who’s accused of some fairly petty, although stupid and wrong, ethical violations, and there’s Senator John Ensign, who’s facing a criminal investigation and which actually — it’s even a story that involves sex. And you get no publicity whatsoever on the Ensign investigation. Why is Rangel getting all this attention?
AMANPOUR: Is that fair, George?
WILL: Well, Rangel is much more important, because he’s chairman of an important committee. And in fact, Rangel’s misfortune is a national misfortune, because we desperately need — and after the deficit commission reports in December, we might have had — serious tax reform in this country. That requires a cooperative member leading that committee in the House.