In the New York Times, Natasha Sarin (Yale), a contributing Opinion writer, has a new piece, “No Wonder Everyone’s Rallying Around This Terrible Idea.” From the piece:
In a nation seemingly unable to agree on anything, people appear to be converging on one idea: Taxes are bad. In addition to the calls for broad-based middle-class tax cuts, we’re seeing proposed exemptions for teachers, law enforcement officials and boat owners. Call it the Oprah tax code: Tipped workers, YOU get a tax break! Teachers, YOU get a tax break! Overtime workers, YOU get a tax break! These suggestions aren’t coming just from Republicans, the longtime proponents of small government and no-new-tax pledges. Today these ideas are attracting people across the political spectrum, including Democratic lawmakers like the senators Chris Van Hollen and Cory Booker, the latter of whom advocates a system by which “the majority of Americans would not pay federal income taxes.”
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It all sounds good, but this profusion of new carve-outs would make the already Byzantine tax code only more complex, worsening our fiscal situation without fixing any of the problems that make America feel unaffordable today. Tax cuts are a Band-Aid, not a solution.
