Unfortunately, George W. Bush has never spelled out a tax reform agenda. The many tax bills he got through Congress have mostly made the tax code more complicated. Reports by the Economic Policy Institute on the left and the National Taxpayers Union on the right agree on this point, if little else.
Villanova University law professor James Maule notes that even as President Bush was proposing a tax reform commission at the Republican convention, he also endorsed more special provisions for the tax code. "So which is it?" Maule asked. "The tax code is complicated and needs to be simplified? Or the tax code should be made more complex by adding at least two more special provisions?"
It isn't as though the Treasury is unaware of the fact that the tax code has become more complicated during this administration. Journalist Ron Suskind recently posted on his website a memo to former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill from his tax policy staff on the need for tax simplification and how to do it. It proves that we don't need another commission to study the issue, just a commitment to do something.
Lately, some journalists have argued that beneath the mass of new complexity and special interest provisions that have been enacted over the last four years, Bush has been secretly engineering a massive tax restructuring. Writing in the Sept. 6 issue of The New Yorker, John Cassidy charges that there has been a virtual conspiracy to eliminate all taxes on the rich by abolishing the taxation of capital.
In his new book, "Neoconomy," former New York Times reporter Daniel Altman says much the same thing. He argues that Bush's ultimate goal is a tax system that taxes only consumption, which will be achieved by incrementally lowering taxes on saving and investment to the point where there is nothing left to tax except consumption.
Although Altman favors such a tax change, he admits that it has involved "a bit of bait-and-switch," where tax cuts for long-term growth were sold politically as short-run stimulus, although they weren't.
I think Kerry has missed an opportunity to score some points against Bush by making tax reform a campaign issue. It would be helpful to have a national debate on this topic during a presidential campaign, for only when the voters are engaged can we expect congressional action.