Leonard Burman (Syracuse University, Maxwell School) presents Tax Expenditures and Government Size and Efficiency (with Marvin Phaup (George Washington University, Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration)) at Pennsylvania today as part of its Center for Tax Law and Policy Seminar Series hosted by Chris William Sanchirico and Reed Shuldiner. Here is part of the Introduction:

The paper describes the current dysfunctional budget process and suggests reforms to the process that would explicitly and consistently incorporate and control tax expenditures. Beyond simply measuring tax expenditures and presenting them alongside explicit spending, the budget process could be modified to include caps on all spending—discretionary, mandatory, and tax expenditures—to facilitate tradeoffs of tax expenditures and explicit spending, and to provide incentives for policy makers to abide by the caps.