Five Challenges for Obama’s Tough Second-Term
Barack Obama has pulled off the easy part. He got re-elected. Now, he faces a second term full of painful choices. You could see it in his campaign, which focused more on Mitt Romney’s flaws than on...
View ArticleWashington Starts To Dance Away from the Fiscal Cliff
So the dance begins. President Obama, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), and various other lawmakers are starting to lay down their markers as they look to back away from the fiscal cliff. Based on...
View ArticleCongress Can’t Avoid Tax Rate Hikes By Closing “Loopholes”
You can tell when Congress and the President have tough choices to make. That’s when they trot out the euphemisms—all aimed at making what they are about to do sound as benign as possible. Case in...
View ArticleCan Congress Raise Taxes on the Rich without Raising Their Rates? Maybe
At his press conference yesterday, President Obama said it is nearly impossible to raise taxes on the wealthy (a key piece of his fiscal strategy) without increasing their tax rates. It is, Obama said,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Understanding President Obama’s Revenue Targets
President Obama and administration officials have offered two different revenue targets for the fiscal cliff debate: $1 trillion and $1.6 trillion (sometimes reported as $1.5 trillion). You might be...
View ArticleWhat Happens if Congress Extends Tax Cuts for Those Making $500,000?
What would happen if Congress extends the 2001-2010 tax cuts for couples making $500,000 or $1 million-a-year instead of $250,000 or less, as President Obama proposed? According to a new analysis by...
View ArticleHow Can 98 Percent of Us be Middle-Class?
Congress and President Obama can’t agree on much, but they agree on this: Congress must preserve what they persist in calling middle-class tax cuts. As most TaxVox readers know by now, the red lines in...
View ArticleWhy the Senate’s Tax Bill is No Way Out of the Fiscal Impasse
With fiscal cliff talks seemingly stalled (at least today) , there has been growing talk that House Republicans would call President Obama’s bluff and simply pass the Middle-class Tax Cut Act approved...
View ArticleFive Ways the Chasm Between Democratic and Republican Budget Plans is Growing
If their leaders’ public statements are to be believed, the fiscal chasm between the political parties is widening. And it is hard to see how it can be bridged. Congressional Democrats and...
View ArticleCorporate Tax Reform is on Obama’s Agenda, But Can He Pull it Off?
In what will probably be the usual endless laundry list of State of the Union promises, President Obama is likely to include tax reform, by which he means a rewrite of the corporate revenue code. The...
View Article“Common Sense” Aside, What Do We Really Know About Capital Income Taxes and...
If you’re discussing tax policy with someone who asserts that his or her point is “just common sense,” this could indicate one of two things: Either no deep thought is required—as the person would have...
View ArticleA Buffett Rule Proposal in Congress
In his State of the Union speech, President Obama’s called for a new law that would require high-income people to pay at least 30 percent of their income in taxes. In response, Senator Sheldon...
View ArticleTaxes in Obama’s Budget: Few Specifics but Some Big Principles
When it comes to taxes, President Obama has proposed what might best be called a conceptual budget—a powerful call for tax reform that is long on principles but, at least when it comes to individual...
View ArticlePresident’s 2013 Budget Would Enable Almost All Americans to Save for Retirement
The new 2013 budget unveiled by President Obama on Monday again contains the Automatic IRA, which was developed by Brookings’ Retirement Security Project in conjunction with The Heritage Foundation....
View ArticleInside Obama’s Framework for Business Tax Reform
Here’s what I love about President Obama’s Framework for Business Tax Reform: His diagnosis of the problem is spot on. In just a few pages, the Treasury Department does a marvelous job describing...
View ArticleGrowing Consensus on Corporate Tax Reform? Not So Much
At first glance, it looked like President Obama and congressional Republicans were miraculously headed in the same direction on corporate tax reform. Reform plans by Obama and GOP leaders such as House...
View ArticleWill Obama’s 2013 Budget Raise or Lower Taxes? Yes.
Republicans like to say President Obama is a chronic, unrepentant tax-raiser. Obama himself used to say he was a tax-cutter but now touts himself as a fiscally responsible steward of the budget who...
View ArticleShould We Delay the Tax Cut Debate Until Early 2013?
Over the past week or so, Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, and Glenn Hubbard have all made the same suggestion: Congress should extend all of the 2001/2003 tax cuts, due to expire at year’s end, into early...
View ArticleRomney and Obama: Big Speeches, Little Vision
Yesterday, Mitt Romney laid out what his campaign said was his vision for health reform. Today, he followed that up with a talk on economic policy. And President Obama delivered a speech that his...
View ArticleObama Proposes Nothing Radical on Taxes. Too Bad.
President Obama today urged Congress to extend the 2001/2003 tax cuts for households making $250,000 or less and insisted lawmakers let those provisions expire for those making more. As the president...
View Article
