Without spending reform, tax reform is just a damn ruse; run the same on us by Trump as every other swamp creature before.
Just be skeptical; and think of the unseen along with the seen.
Don't Fall for Tax Reform
It's a promise every presidential candidate makes, including Trump. But we ought to be suspicious of grandiose talk about Congress reforming anything. Tax reform proposals always evade and obscure the real issue, which is the total cost-- financial, compliance, and human-- taxes impose on society. The fundamental questions about war and entitlements and state power go unasked. We never consider whether Congress really needs to spend more than $4 trillion in 2018, or how it managed to double federal spending in only 15 years.
Since those questions are never seriously raised, every proposal necessarily pits various interest groups against each other in a deadly game to make sure the other guy pays. After all, that $4 trillion has to come from somewhere. Hence we read articles about "winners and losers" in the Wall Street Journal, hapless tax serfs in a zero-sum world.
. . .
The last true "reform," in the sense it significantly altered the tax code, passed in 1986. In today's political climate there is little appetite for debating the tax treatment of labor vs. capital, earned income vs. unearned income, retail sales vs. flat topline income, renting vs. owning, etc. And we should not forget that taxes are a form of carrot and stick, a way for Congress to reward and punish various constituencies. It makes little sense for them to give up this power, just as it make little sense for lobbyists to lobby themselves out of a job.
