Be wary of quick fixes for the nation's economic problems, for they just may make things worse.

For a variety of reasons, the current social security system does an increasingly weaker job over time in allocating its additional revenues to providing protection against poverty in old-age.

[ Indianapolis Star ] Women Democratic senators recently sent President Bush a letter decrying his proposal to divert some payroll taxes into individual accounts, on the grounds that women would take a financial beating. Although many feminist groups hold this view, little empirical evidence

Tax credits are being touted as possible mechanisms for expanding health insurance coverage in the United States. Analysts, members of Congress, and the Bush administration have all developed tax credit proposals in the past few years. However, although tax credit approaches are clearly appealing

[ Contra Costa Times ] Economics can sometimes go round the bend. For instance, in theory, you could avoid the drawbacks of taxes - discouraging work and saving and encouraging tax shelters - by taxing people randomly. The idea is that you can't avoid taxes if you can't anticipate them. This ducky

Senior Fellow Eugene Steuerle describes how tax legislation in 2001 brought to light the difficulty with trying to deal with only one side of the budget at a time, especially with regard to the progressivity issue.

[ Financial Times ] In many ways, the debate over the tax bill was simply a warm-up for the much larger budgetary issues that Congress and President George W. Bush must face over the next few years. There is little doubt that if healthcare and retirement spending increase as scheduled, taxes will

[New York Times] President Bush will sign his long-promised tax cut today. But conservatives shouldn't break out the champagne just yet, nor should liberals start taking their antidepressants. Passing the cuts was easy. Mesmerized by projections of mountainous surpluses, few legislators could say

[Houston Chronicle] Why is the tax code so complicated? Because whenever politicians face important tax policy choices, they always compromise with more complexity. That way they can avoid painful trade-offs.

A bipartisan consensus favors public policy initiatives to expand health insurance coverage. This paper summarizes new CPS data on health insurance coverage for the nonelderly and discusses the issues involved in subsidizing health insurance. We outline a tax credit option designed to diminish many

The bias against tax simplification is strong, and history does not provide many examples of success. Nonetheless, conventional wisdom on the history lesson may be mistaken.

Senior Fellow Eugene Steuerle describes how a child credit revision has a chance to achieve bipartisan support.