In the face of a stagnant economy, a war, a rapidly deteriorating short-term fiscal outlook, and a substantial long-term fiscal problem, the Bush Administration has proposed massive, regressive, permanent tax cuts that it acknowledges are unsustainable. This paper shows that under realistic...

Congress must be careful in deciding whether or not to subject stock options to Social Security and unemployment tax. There is certainly a case to be made for not doing so, but Congress could find itself in the funny position of offering special employment tax treatment to employees who have...

In the early 1970s, a Democratic Congress and a Republican President (Nixon) became concerned about the lack of pension funding, vesting, and coverage for most Americans. They decided to do something about it. This president and Congress, I believe, are not less qualified or less concerned with...

Providing fiscal or tax subsidies to try to promote additional work and saving is a relatively modern notion. These subsidies may stimulate demand by putting more money in the economy, but they are designed primarily to affect behavior through incentives. Modern industrial economies like the U.S...

The collapse of Enron brings out many tales, but none motivate action more than images of workers who now are left with little or nothing in the way of retirement plan benefits. In response, President Bush has requested legislation that would essentially remove some bars that prevent workers...

Senior Fellow Eugene Steuerle argues that there are advantages to the administration's USA account proposal. It would attempt to use some general revenues to fortify and build up the private pension system. He concludes that with luck, it would develop and reinforce better saving patterns by...

Senior Fellow Eugene Steuerle argues that the fatal flaw in the administration's strategy behind its private pension proposal is that it is not integrated either with social security reform or with further reform of the private pension system. Accordingly, if adopted as proposed, USA accounts...

Senior Fellow Eugene Steuerle comments on the apparent demise of the Clinton Administrations USA proposal, and examines its pros and cons.

This paper raises a number of concerns about various options and offers a number of examples of ways to slow the growth of Medicare spending.

In this third part of the series, we look at the conservatives' approach to the tax expenditure budget.