TaxVox: Federal Budget and Economy

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The voices of Tax Policy Center's researchers and staff

Individual Taxes

Fed to Banks: Lend Only to Those Who Can Repay

December 18, 2007 –
"Creditors would be prohibited from … extending credit without considering borrowers' ability to repay the loan." This is not a joke. It is part of proposed new Federal Reserve Board regulations aimed at stopping banks from repeating the shockingly bad lending practices that led to the still-worsening mortgage mess. Perhaps they could call the new rule "stop me before I lend again."
Individual Taxes

Pay Go, Pay Gone: AMT Drives Senate Dems to Blink

December 7, 2007 –
To the surprise of no-one, the Senate has blinked in the stand-off over whether Congress will pay for the cost of patching the Alternative Minimum Tax for another year. The question now: Will House Democrats stand firm, or will they too cave in to the big-bucks lobbying campaign of the hedge fund and private equity industry?
Federal Budget and Economy

Read My Lips

November 29, 2007 –
Interesting to watch the Republican debate last night. Once they got past their arguments about who hired whom with a "funny accent" or who would build a bigger barrier across the Mexican border (Duncan Hunter trumped everyone by promising to build a double fence), the Presidential candidates tackled the "no tax" pledge invented a decade ago by Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform. Their answers were revealing.
Federal Budget and Economy

Stein’s Law

November 13, 2007 –
In an important new report, the Congressional Budget Office presents a troubling estimate of long-term growth in health care spending. If the projections are even close to correct, they will have a profound impact on tax and budget policy for the foreseeable future. "This is the central long-term fiscal challenge facing the U.S.," says CBO director Peter Orszag.
Individual Taxes

A $1 Trillion Tax Hike?

October 25, 2007 –
One of the main charges against the Rangel tax plan is that it would increase taxes by $1 trillion. Which is a bit odd because the President's budget proposed the exact same revenue increase, although in his case it is collected through the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) instead of a rate surcharge on high income families.
Federal Budget and Economy

Dodging the Deficit

October 23, 2007 –
President Bush and the Congress are going to spend much of the next three months in an ugly cage match over $21 billion in spending. While $21 billion is real money by anyone's definition, the energy they will expend on this largely symbolic fight could be put to much better use. They could, for instance, use the time to look seriously at where the real money is—entitlements and an increasingly out-of-whack tax code.
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