Memo to the President: Tax Reform’s Challenges and Opportunities

Friday, December 5, 2008, 9:00 am – 4:30 pm
(light breakfast at 8:30 a.m.)
The Brookings Institution, Falk Auditorium,
1775 Massachusetts Ave, NW, Washington, DC

View Select Video Clips of William Gale and Leonard Burman

The tax code is complex and hard to understand, riddled with loopholes, and widely viewed as unfair. Now, a new president and Congress face the challenge of addressing these shortcomings while creating a new system that contributes to economic growth. Complicating matters further, President Bush’s tax cuts are due to expire in 2010, the alternative minimum tax will reach tens of millions of Americans if left alone, and lawmakers will be searching for revenue sources to help finance health care reform and other priorities. With all of this as background, this day-long event—cosponsored by the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center (TPC), Tax Analysts, and the Brookings Institution—will explore key tax issues that are, or should be, on the agenda of President-elect Obama and his new administration.

Welcome

• Leonard Burman, Director, Tax Policy Center, and Senior Fellow, Urban Institute
• Christopher Bergin, President and Publisher, Tax Analysts

Panel One: Setting the Stage

• Leonard Burman (Moderator)
• William Gale, Vice President and Director, Economic Studies Program, Brookings Institution, and TPC Codirector
• Roberton Williams, Principal Research Associate, Tax Policy Center, Urban Institute
• John Buckley, Chief Democratic Tax Counsel, House Ways and Means Committee

Panel Two: Taxes and the Social Safety Net

• Deborah Schenk (Moderator), Ronald and Marilynn Grossman Professor of Taxation, New York University School of Law
• Leonard Burman
• Fred Goldberg, Partner, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom

Lunch

• William Gale (Moderator)

• Bill Dauster, Deputy Staff Director and General Counsel for the U.S. Senate Finance Committee

Panel Three: Taxation of Capital Income

• Rosanne Altshuler (Moderator), Professor of Economics, Rutgers University and Incoming Codirector, Tax Policy Center
• Pamela Olson, Partner, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, and Former Assistant Treasury Secretary for Tax Policy
• Lily Batchelder, Associate Professor of Law and Public Policy, New York University Law School

Panel Four: Energy Taxes

• Christopher Bergin (Moderator)
• Marty Sullivan, Contributing Editor, Tax Analysts
• David Weisbach, Walter J. Blum Professor of Law and Kearney Director of the Program in Law and Economics, University of Chicago Law School
• Gilbert Metcalf, Professor of Economics, Tufts University

Closing Comments

• Leonard Burman