Mark Mazur, Director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, testified before the Joint Economic Committee during a hearing entitled “Unleashing America’s Economic Potential.” In his testimony, Mazur presented a review of the principles of desirable tax policy, clear and less clear findings...
This exercise is a structured analysis to understand the implications that repealing tax expenditures would have for the overall federal tax system. The baseline tax law for the calculations in this exercise is the law in effect before enactment of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (essentially the Tax...
Widespread and profound public misinformation about government presents a serious challenge for democratic accountability. This paper demonstrates that two of the most common examples of public misperception may be systematically overestimated; public misperceptions of government spending are in...
This paper presents estimates of the macroeconomic effects, and resulting dynamic impact on revenues, of the House GOP tax plan announced in June 2016. The estimates were produced in two ways. One set of estimates uses a combination of TPC’s Keynesian model (to project short-run effects on...
This paper gives an overview of the TPC’s methodology for dynamic analysis of tax proposals. Following the practice of official government estimators, we use a Keynesian model to estimate the short-term effects of policy changes on output relative to its full-employment level. That model assumes...
New information from the Congressional Budget Office allows an update of the fiscal outlook. While deficits are manageable in the short run, the debt-GDP ratio is already high relative to historical norms. Under “current policy,” we project the ratio will rise to 96 percent by 2027 and 154...
This essay is the tenth in a twelve-essay colloquium on the effect of low interest rates on the economy. To read other essays in the series, click here. The original version of this paper was...
Economists widely advocate establishing a price on carbon as a central means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and the risks of global climatic disruption and ocean acidification. To be sure, a price on carbon is necessarily one part of a broader climate policy portfolio that includes...
A longstanding concern of state and local governments is that a federal value-added tax (VAT) could shrink sales tax bases. But a federal VAT could have even bigger effects on other revenues and spending through changes in incomes, relative prices, and asset values. To illustrate the range of...
Reflections on the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
Mark Mazur, Director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, testified before the Joint Economic Committee during a hearing entitled “Unleashing America’s Economic Potential.” In his testimony, Mazur presented a review of the principles of desirable tax policy, clear and less clear findings...
The Tax Reform Tradeoff: Eliminating Tax Expenditures, Reducing Rates Final Report
This exercise is a structured analysis to understand the implications that repealing tax expenditures would have for the overall federal tax system. The baseline tax law for the calculations in this exercise is the law in effect before enactment of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (essentially the Tax...
Public Ignorance or Elitist Jargon?: Reconsidering Americans’ Overestimates of Government Waste and Foreign Aid
Widespread and profound public misinformation about government presents a serious challenge for democratic accountability. This paper demonstrates that two of the most common examples of public misperception may be systematically overestimated; public misperceptions of government spending are in...
Dynamic Analysis of the House GOP Tax Plan: An Update
This paper presents estimates of the macroeconomic effects, and resulting dynamic impact on revenues, of the House GOP tax plan announced in June 2016. The estimates were produced in two ways. One set of estimates uses a combination of TPC’s Keynesian model (to project short-run effects on...
Dynamic Analysis of Tax Plans: An Update
This paper gives an overview of the TPC’s methodology for dynamic analysis of tax proposals. Following the practice of official government estimators, we use a Keynesian model to estimate the short-term effects of policy changes on output relative to its full-employment level. That model assumes...
An Analysis of the House GOP Tax Plan
This research report was originally published by the Columbia Journal of Tax Law. The publication is updated version of, "An Analysis of the...
The Fiscal Outlook at the Beginning of the Trump Administration
New information from the Congressional Budget Office allows an update of the fiscal outlook. While deficits are manageable in the short run, the debt-GDP ratio is already high relative to historical norms. Under “current policy,” we project the ratio will rise to 96 percent by 2027 and 154...
Interest Rates and the Federal Budget Outlook
This essay is the tenth in a twelve-essay colloquium on the effect of low interest rates on the economy. To read other essays in the series, click here. The original version of this paper was...
11 Essential Questions for Designing a Policy to Price Carbon
Economists widely advocate establishing a price on carbon as a central means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and the risks of global climatic disruption and ocean acidification. To be sure, a price on carbon is necessarily one part of a broader climate policy portfolio that includes...
Effects of a Federal Value-Added Tax on State and Local Budgets
A longstanding concern of state and local governments is that a federal value-added tax (VAT) could shrink sales tax bases. But a federal VAT could have even bigger effects on other revenues and spending through changes in incomes, relative prices, and asset values. To illustrate the range of...