March 23, 2008
The Real McCain
McCain's tax and health-care proposals ought to help focus progressive attention on November rather than Obama-v.-Clinton sniping.
February 23, 2008
Cracking down on tax evasion
Germany is getting serious about it. The Swiss banking association seems to think that catching tax cheats is a Nazi policy.
January 20, 2008
January 10, 2008
Shorter Steven Landsburg
If Huckabee had proposed a program vaguely similar in one respect to his Fair Tax, that completely different program might be a good idea. So no fair criticizing him!
October 18, 2007
Financing S-CHIP
Let's re-pass S-CHIP, with a new financing mechanism: either a surtax on incomes over $500,000 per year, or a tax on private jet travel.
September 04, 2007
Even More Tax Reform...
Below, Mike O'Hare raises some issues with Mike Graetz's proposal for tax reform, as interpreted through my abbreviated discussion of it. We agree on one issue, and disagree on on the other. First, I agree that we ought to axe the mortgage interest deduction entirely. The Oakeshottean in me is queasy with the unpredictable effects of such a change, given...
September 03, 2007
Two more notes on tax reform
Steve skewers extending the mortgage income tax deduction down the income scale and applying it to payroll taxes in his recent post, and admires a package with a 25% income tax only on income above $100,000 per family. I wish first to take another poke at the first idea. Why do we subsidize housing at all? There's a romantic view...
Wrongheaded Tax Policy
At the American Prospect, Michael Lind has a long piece proposing that we allow people who, because their income is too low, to take some of the largest tax deductions (like the mortgage interest deduction) against their payroll taxes. Before explaining why I think this is precisely the wrong direction for tax policy to go in, I should note that...
August 07, 2007
Facing reality, a little bit late
The Republican Governor of Minnesota is reconsidering his opposition to tax increases after the bridge collapse. Too bad he didn't do so before the collapse. Since he's not running for President, he can't just pretend that the money will magically appear. Has someone told Rudy Giuliani?
