Taxation Archive

2003 Tax Cut Survey


Online Resources

University of Michigan Business School Office of Tax Policy and Research
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Fiscal advocacy for moderate-to-lower incomes.
Citizens for Tax Justice
Tax advocacy group.
Critiques of Libertarianism
Mike Huben compiles critiques of libertarian anti-taxation arguments.
Economics 127 Public Finance: Taxation Syllabus
Dr. Deborah Garvey of Santa Clara University’s syllabus points to several useful resources.
Econ 315: Public Economics
University of Missouri.
Washington Post Tax Policy
Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center
“Provides timely, accessible analysis and facts about tax policy to policymakers, journalists, citizens, and researchers.”
President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform
Joint Committee on Taxation
Taxing Thoughts

Debate Chronology

1996

6/23
Cutting Taxes Could Also Cut Growth
William Gale of Brookings expounds on the risks of certain tax-cutting policy mixes.

1999

1/21
Information and Misinformation about Federal Tax Burdens
A Center on Budget and Policy Priorities brief rebutting Tax Foundation numbers on median family tax burdens.
2/24
Are Americans Really Overtaxed?
William Gale outlines issues of tax burdens.
March
The Case Against Tax Cuts
William Gale briefly surveys tax burdens in this Brookings Institute Policy Brief.

2000

8/20
Most Unkindest Cuts
Paul Krugman distills the difference between the two party’s income tax proposals and counters the Wall Street Journal’s recycling of the University of Michigan study.
8/23
Al Gore’s Class Warfare
Bruce Bartlett responds to Krugman (by citing the Michigan and Dallas Fed studies.)

2001

2/12
The Rich Get Richer
Edward Wolff, writing in the American Prospect , enumerates proposals to alleviate the effects of income and wealth inequality.
6/1
Tax Policy From 1990 to 2001[PDF]
A review by Eugene Steuerle of the Urban Institute.
6/11
Tax Burden Rising for the Rich and Not So Rich
Bruce Bartlett, writing for the Pete Dupont-founded National Center for Policy Analysis, responds in an assessment of the tax rates on the top 5%.

2002

4/10
Overall Federal Tax Burden on Most Families — Including Middle-Income Families — at Lowest Levels in More Than Two Decades: Income Taxes for Median Family of Four at Lowest Level in 44 Years
An update on middle-class tax burdens from the verbose Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
9/19
Alternative Minimum Tax
Brad DeLong introduces a New York Times article outlining the effects of the Bush tax cut on the middle class.
10/31
Do Lower Taxes Mean Faster Economic Growth?
Jeff Madrick, writing in The New York Times, surveys the empirical evidence against long-run stimulative effects of tax cuts.
11/7
Whinging and Snivelling From a Democrat
Brad DeLong, writing in his Semi-Daily Journal, lays out a theoretical basis for efficacious Republican tax policy:

· ... Let me give you some marginal tax rates... a mother with two kids earning $24000: 68% (she loses the last of her food stamps, and her earned income tax credit phases out)... a doctor making $200,000: 36.4%... an executive making $1,000,000: 40%... Any decent supply-sider would say that the real place where marginal tax rates needed to be cut in 2001 was around the $25000 a year zone: the place where the phase out of the earned income credit makes marginal rates astronomical. We economist types were never able to interest Clinton and company in such a proposal--at a gut level, Clinton simply didn't get the importance of lower marginal rates so that people don't get hit in the nose by a 2 x 4 when they work more hours and the IRS snarfs most of it. Larry Lindsey is supposed to have led a charge to get a proposal to "deal with the EITC phaseout problem" into the 2001 tax bill, but he got absolutely nowhere. Bush, Cheney, and their personal staffs don't resonate with the problems of mothers of two making $12 an hour... mothers of two making $12 an hour don't give big to Republican presidential candidates, or show up at the $1000 a plate dinners that are what presidential candidates do day after day these days. So we got a tax cut that gives 40% of its notional dollars to those making more than $300,000 a year whose marginal tax rates are much lower than those of the mother of two earning $12 an hour. (Larry Lindsey keeps saying that they'll come back to it and fix it; but the word is that he's about to get "invited" to "spend more time with his family.")

12/8
If Tax History Is a Guide, the Poor Are in Trouble
Roger Altman surveys the Republican Party’s historical antipathy to tax relief for those with lower incomes, and notes that a Brookings study by Joseph Pechman in the 1980s indicated that the totality of the American tax system does not effectively change the state of income distribution.

2005

Toward Fundamental Tax Reform [PDF]
AEI publication including Joel Slemrod and others.
4/12
Guest Viewpoint: Some taxation principles, to get debate started
An Op-ed in the Register-Guard by University of Oregon economist Mark Thoma on distributive equity and its application in normative arguments about taxation.
5/5
What Should a Reconfigured Tax System Look Like?
Economist Hal Varian.
7/10
SPINNING THE MYTH....
Kevin Drum on the dearth of family farms paying the Estate tax.
8/15
A Flat Tax Recipe for Disaster
Mark Thoma, at his blog Economist's View, on the latest Steve Forbes column.
10/18
Tax Reform
Kash at the blog Angry Bear links to New York Times coverage of Bush's tax advisory commission and mulls over tax simplification.