Mother Jones
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Credit where it’s due department: I was pretty skeptical of Dave Camp’s tax reform proposal last night, figuring that it would just be the usual Republican mush of lower tax rates on the rich combined with some handwaving about elimination of tax breaks that would theoretically make it revenue neutral.
But I was wrong. It turns out that Camp’s plan specifies the tax breaks he wants to close in considerable detail. And according to the analysis of the Joint Committee on Taxation, which is usually fairly reliable, it would be both revenue neutral and distributionally pretty neutral too. Over ten years it would raise about $3 billion more than present law, and the chart on the right shows how tax rates would be affected. Generally speaking, effective tax rates would go down for the poor and the middle class, and would go up slightly for the affluent. (These are estimates for 2015. They change slightly in subsequent years.)
Needless to say, this all depends on his plan being passed as is, which isn’t likely. In fact, it seems unlikely to pass at all. Nonetheless, Camp’s plan isn’t just a Trojan Horse to cut taxes on the rich. There are, unsurprisingly, aspects of it I don’t like, but it seems to be a tolerably serious effort at tax reform that both parties could live with. It’s certainly a lot better than I expected.
Link:
Second Look: Tax Reform Act of 2014 Turns Out to Be a Pretty Good Effort
