The Awfulness Of The Income Tax

On which score the present system doesn't seem to satisfy us completely. If you think so, listen to the Democrats talk about "tax cuts for the wealthy." Anything that can be represented, politically speaking, as favorable to fat cats -- no matter how badly it works, no matter how much it distorts intelligent decision-making in things economic -- we evidently don't want. That the Bush tax cuts have brought into the Treasury more money than the dollar amount of the cuts doesn't count. Nor does it matter that no one really understands the tax code. It's a matter of perception. The main idea isn't to gather money, it's to feed the political rhetoric machine. The richest nation in the world loves to pummel the rich.

At least our politicians do. I'm less sure about those they purportedly represent. Fifteen-thousand-square-foot McMansions and stock options can incite the best of us at the worst of times. We think, who really needs all that dough? The politicians who manage the tax code from the left end of the political spectrum go a step beyond thinking about such matters. They see the code as a way of ramping up resentments against their philosophical opponents. Far from agreeing to flatten tax rates, they campaign for taxes that 1) nurture their ability to redistribute the goodies and 2) get the idea out that to favor tax cuts is to favor unfairness and elitism.

We won't get reform out of these characters anytime soon. No flat tax; nothing that actually simplifies the taxpayer's life. Forget it. We just might, though, in the meantime, if we work hard and keep our eyes on the political ball, successfully defend the lower rates of the Bush years and even cut them some deeper. Things being as they are, I'll take it.