Unfortunately my email is down at the moment so I can't ask Ben Bateman directly... but is this really the best way to design a tax system?
When Congress is in session, it's best to arrange your financial affairs very defensively. Herewith, some specifics.From the start of 2001 through this past september Congress made (by tax publisher CCH's count) 1,971 changes to the U.S. tax code--roughly 3 for each day it was in session. And all this tinkering produced what? The need for still more changes, of course.
The article goes on for several thousand words explaining a mind-boggling array of tax considerations that middle-class earners need to take into account, and it leaves me feeling utterly forlorn.
Hello Michael Williams!
congratulations on your marriage! sorry we couldn't make it.
i thought i blogged a lot - but you are really serious!
how's life in LA going for you?
we're loving oregon and seminary, but we miss everyone.
anyway, just wanted to say hello.
sarah budd
Michael, the problem here is that American tax policy is changing. It has become a battlefield on which we fight the larger ideological war of American politics.
For many decades, tax policy was not just a way to raise money efficient; it was also a way to impose an ideological vision of punishing the evil rich. That's slowly changing now, thanks to Republican control of Congress. But it will be a long, hard march to pick out decades of ideology from the immense body of rules that is tax law without damaging the overall structure.
Meanwhile, we have uncertainty, both because the Republicans may not ultimately reach their conservative goal, and because the Republicans aren't exactly sure how to achieve it. It was much easier for them to be out of power and complaining, rather than being in power with responsibility for doing things right.
This uncertainty is not peculiar to tax law. It affects everything the government touches: Should the military plan for more big nation-building missions, or will they go back to the meals-on-wheels operations they did during the Clinton years? Should the poor expect more government welfare, or to be cut off, or a switch to private sources? Will immigration enforcement get tougher? Will criminal sentencing get tougher? Will the feds spend more money on drug law enforcement? In education, will there be more dollars or fewer, and with easier or harder testing requirements? In the federally funded arts, will PBS, NPR, and the NEA still be with us ten years from now? What will happen when more pressure comes to bear on our colleges and universities over their bias problems?
Our country is changing, and the government reflects that. In most times and places, they fought a revolution every few generations to flush out the stale, old ideas and bring in the fresh new ones. The main blessing of democracy is that we can skip the chaos and bloodshed. Instead, we release and resolve the same tension through acrimonious arguing in the halls of Congress. It isn't pretty, but it beats warfare.