'The Economist' reviews Bruce Bartlett's latest book
Tax reform in America: A simple bare necessity
The effort to make common sense
The Economist, Feb 4th 2012 | from the print edition
The Benefit and the Burden: Tax Reform—Why We Need It and What It Will Take. By Bruce Bartlett. Simon & Schuster; 271 pages; $26.
FEW subjects match tax reform for economic importance and utter lack of sex appeal. With a government bleeding red ink, an ageing population and growth lagging, reform is back on America’s political agenda. Bruce Bartlett, a supply-side economist, tax expert and former adviser to President Reagan, is among those best equipped to help navigate the murky terrain. Mr Bartlett held influential economic positions during the country’s last great spasm of reform in the 1980s, but he is now held an apostate by many Republicans, for whom the only acceptable tax changes are cuts. His balanced, well-researched primer on America’s tax system, “The Benefit and the Burden”, will not endear him further to ideologues, but it is a refreshing entrée to a difficult subject.
The book’s no-nonsense approach to tax policy proves surprisingly engaging. Mr Bartlett walks readers through discussions on income and spending—basic concepts made baffling within the context of the tax code. He offers a dose of history and the useful perspective of a seasoned Washington hand. America’s labyrinthine tax rules are hardly the product of intelligent design, he explains. The popular deduction for home-mortgage interest that helped create suburban America, for example, was not adopted to boost home-ownership but included quite innocently in a 1913 income-tax law that spared interest of any kind. Where economics has useful things to say about tax Mr Bartlett is quick to cite research. And he is prepared to let empirical analysis speak for itself.
(More here.)
The effort to make common sense
The Economist, Feb 4th 2012 | from the print edition
The Benefit and the Burden: Tax Reform—Why We Need It and What It Will Take. By Bruce Bartlett. Simon & Schuster; 271 pages; $26.
FEW subjects match tax reform for economic importance and utter lack of sex appeal. With a government bleeding red ink, an ageing population and growth lagging, reform is back on America’s political agenda. Bruce Bartlett, a supply-side economist, tax expert and former adviser to President Reagan, is among those best equipped to help navigate the murky terrain. Mr Bartlett held influential economic positions during the country’s last great spasm of reform in the 1980s, but he is now held an apostate by many Republicans, for whom the only acceptable tax changes are cuts. His balanced, well-researched primer on America’s tax system, “The Benefit and the Burden”, will not endear him further to ideologues, but it is a refreshing entrée to a difficult subject.
The book’s no-nonsense approach to tax policy proves surprisingly engaging. Mr Bartlett walks readers through discussions on income and spending—basic concepts made baffling within the context of the tax code. He offers a dose of history and the useful perspective of a seasoned Washington hand. America’s labyrinthine tax rules are hardly the product of intelligent design, he explains. The popular deduction for home-mortgage interest that helped create suburban America, for example, was not adopted to boost home-ownership but included quite innocently in a 1913 income-tax law that spared interest of any kind. Where economics has useful things to say about tax Mr Bartlett is quick to cite research. And he is prepared to let empirical analysis speak for itself.
(More here.)
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