I love working on public finance issues and seeing their endless application to so many budget, tax, spending, and charitable issues that go well beyond what can be found in any textbook. I am drawn to Urban because in my view, it leads the nation in so many areas of research—combining its talents for evaluating a broad spectrum of public policy issues, gathering and using related data from a range of sources, and integrating research across disparate program areas; and all the while maintaining a truly nonpartisan approach to analysis, a deep culture of respect for each member of the organization, and a strong commitment to serve the public through its work.
The Presidents January 7, 2003 economic stimulus proposal for enhancing the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 (EGTRRA) would, in addition to ending the corporate taxation of dividends and speeding up tax rate and marriage penalty relief, accelerate the increase in the...
Both the president and members of Congress have expressed strong political desire to appear to be "doing something" about the past recession and the current unemployment rate. This sentiment cuts across political parties and between the executive and congressional branches of government. In...
The last decade has seen a surge in the use of the tax system to deliver dollars to families with children. As late as the early 1990s, the most important tax provision applying to children was the dependent exemption. For several decades, however, Congress failed to increase this exemption in...
Systematic tax reform, that ever-elusive but ever-desirable elf, has made some appearances recently before quickly ducking out of sight. Although many tax enactments involve changing the boundaries of the tax system - say, tax rates or deductions or limits - history warns us that seldom has...
When the income tax was first introduced in 1913, it boasted a top rate of a mere 7 percent on those earning above $500,000 (close to $9 million in 2002 dollars). For the nation's wealthiest taxpayers, this was as good as it was ever going to get - this state of affairs lasted just three years....
This was the presidential address given at the National Tax Association meeting on November 14, 2002, exploring the long term developments in public finance. In particular, it focuses on four areas: First, both external events and the advancement of knowledge have brought public finance analysis...
Concepts of equity and fairness are at the heart of tax policy. Yet, for all its populist appeal, tax equity is loosely understood and inconsistently applied. This concept comprises at least three distinct dimensions: horizontal, vertical, and individual equity. The very real tension among these...
Within the Executive Branch, only the Treasury Department is equipped to deal well with the political crisis surrounding the imposition of the alternative minimum tax on tens of millions of taxpayers.
Despite a brief upturn in the early- to mid-1990s, the profits of nonfinancial corporations have dropped dramatically as a percentage of GDP in recent decades and are near an all-time low. Does this mean that owners of corporate capital are worse off? Not necessarily. The owners of corporations...
The Congressional Budget Office and government actuaries for decades have shown that Social Security and Medicare remain on unsustainable tracks, but it is often hard...
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and President Biden recently agreed to cut back on some of the increased IRS funding enacted through last year’s Inflation...
The recent compromise between Republicans and Democrats on extending the federal debt limit was hailed for avoiding the disaster of a default, demonstrating that both...
Like all presidential budgets, President Biden’s fiscal year 2024 proposals reflect the priorities he would set for the nation. As in prior years, Biden would...
While Congress talks about the federal debt, it’s still hesitating to deal with one major source of rising deficits—Medicare—that it can’t avoid much longer. Medicare’s...
During the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, Congress substantially increased benefits for children, including big boosts in the Child Tax Credit...
In just 13 years, Social Security trust funds will be unable to pay full promised benefits. Unfortunately, a House bill with broad bipartisan support could...
It’s always tempting to exaggerate the importance of the latest big fight in Congress. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) made some major policy...
The new minimum tax on the income that very large corporations report to their shareholders is the revenue centerpiece of the recently enacted Inflation Reduction...
President Trump was afraid to tackle the dominant set of spending and tax issues facing the federal government. Ditto, so far, for President Biden. Under...
Among its many changes, the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act substantially increased the share of federal income taxpayers taking the standard deduction, leaving fewer...
Policymakers and even policy analysts often consider the progressivity of specific proposals independently from the broader systems in which they operate. Consequently, they often leave...
When Congress increases spending and cuts taxes then fails to extend the nation’s debt limit, it effectively orders the president to run deficits while prohibiting...
Buried in today’s partisan squabbles over President Biden’s ambitious domestic agenda is a fundamental question: How can government best increase the nation’s wealth? Does it...
A key feature of President Biden’s effort to expand government support for low-income families is its increase in the earned income tax credit (EITC) for...
Most Social Security reform proposals have focused on one goal: restoring the program’s long-run fiscal balance. Yet under all recent proposed restructurings we have examined—whether...
The COVID-19 pandemic and accompanying recession laid bare many of the needs of working families and children, as well as federal, state, and local governments’...
When Congress enacted the American Rescue Plan (ARP), it included an implicit deal: It agreed to reduce the level of additional future weekly federal unemployment...
In 2017 and again in 2020, Congress made deficient—but temporary—changes to the federal income tax deduction for charitable giving. By significantly increasing the standard deduction,...
