President Obama’s proposal to boost the Medicare tax is a key element of the compromise health bill that looks increasingly as if it is going to become law. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates it would generate over $180 billion over the next decade. And exactly as intended, the tax increase would fall almost entirely on the top 1 percent of taxpayers, according to a new analysis by my Tax Policy Center colleagues.

Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) has responded to the Tax Policy Center's analysis of the revenue portion of his Roadmap for America's Future. TPC found Ryan's major tax restructuring would likely raise significantly less revenue than he expected and would substantially lower taxes for high-earners. In his response, Ryan suggests he'd be willing to adjust his plan to hit his revenue target of 19 percent of Gross Domestic Product. Here is his response:

In his provocative Roadmap for America’s Future, Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) figures that his broad tax code overhaul would eventually generate about 19 percent of Gross Domestic Product in revenues. But the Ryan plan would produce hundreds of billions of dollars-a-year less than that—about 16.8 percent of GDP—a decade from now, according to new Tax Policy Center estimates. Moreover, the plan would give a huge tax cut to the wealthy, while cutting taxes by little or nothing (and in some cases even raising taxes) for low- and middle-income people.

As Congress debates the latest fiscal stimulus bill, commentators have been debating the effectiveness of the previous one. Much of this debate has focused on funds flowing through state capitals, cities, and towns. Depending on whom you ask, these funds have been a critical lifeline or a colossal waste of money. Both views are probably overblown. Last year’s stimulus worked pretty much like previous efforts to boost the economy through state and local governments.

Critics of health reform legislation assert that it would crush small business. The National Federation of Independent Business, for instance, insists reform will have “a costly and punitive impact” on these firms. I do not understand this argument. Small businesses face huge disadvantages in today’s insurance market. Unlike their larger competitors, they can’t self-insure or bargain for low premiums and their small risk pools make them highly susceptible to huge rate hikes if just a single employee gets sick. The health bill would help level that playing field.

Sad to see Representative Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) step down today as chairman of the House Ways & Means Committee. The move, in the wake of a series of alleged personal financial scandals, was announced as temporary, but there is little question that Rangel has given up the chair for good.

This was my day: I went to the dentist. I spent an hour being interviewed on end-of-life issues. And I listened to four tax experts commiserate about the massive fiscal hole we have dug for ourselves and how we can shovel our way out. I’ve had better. Yet, the Tax Policy Center panel, called Desperately Seeking Revenue, generated more than the usual budget gloom and doom. True, TPC co-director Rosanne Altshuler presented some truly hair-raising projections of the depth of the problem: In sum, she made two points: 1) Unless we act, we will add $11 trillion over the next decade to the national debt, roughly doubling what we already owe. 2) It is not possible, in any reasonable world, to close that gap by hiking income tax rates alone. Thus, the title of both her paper on the subject (written with colleagues Bob Williams and Katherine Lim) and the panel: Desperately Seeking Revenue.

Watching the made-for-TV Olympics the other night, I could not help but wonder: Why does the federal government subsidize the United States Olympic Committee by granting it tax-exempt status? The question is especially interesting because The Washington Post reports the USOC may soon ask for direct government support.

Last week Fox Business News asked me whether it was a problem that nearly half of all Americans paid no federal income tax last year. I’ve gotten that question repeatedly since I reported the Tax Policy Center estimate that 47 percent of all taxpayers and 55 percent of the elderly and families with children paid no federal individual income tax in 2009. (Remember, however, that most people who pay no federal income tax do pay Social Security, Medicare and other federal taxes as well as state taxes.) Still, reporters and others want to know if it is fair that so many people pay “no” tax?

I know it is risky so early in the year, but I have a nomination for the worst idea of 2010. Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), wants to make Social Security retirement benefits available beginning at age 60. Temporarily. To create jobs. His logic appears to be this: If one million people between 60 and 62 (the current age for early Social Security eligibility) retire early, they will open up one million new opportunities for younger people. Somehow, in Kucinich-math, this creates jobs.