海角大神

Here is a sort of data dump (sorry) of various reactions I鈥檝e had to the President鈥檚 FY2013 budget in the past week.

My organization, the Concord Coalition, put out this on Monday, accompanied by the video summary above that my colleague Josh Gordon and I made.

(I also did this radioon Patt Morrison鈥檚 show on southern CA鈥檚 NPR station, KPCC, on Monday.)

I was most intrigued by what is new in the President鈥檚 proposals in terms of tax policy:聽 there鈥檚 actually a bolder move to combine the 鈥淏uffett Rule鈥濃�搑aising taxes on the rich so that their effective (average) tax burdens aren鈥檛 any lower than those of middle-class households鈥搘ith a more fundamental tax reform strategy (which economists like) of broadening the tax base.聽 I鈥檝e said before that there are lots of different ways to raise taxes on millionaires, but I鈥檇 prefer to see it done by reducing tax expenditures (which disproportionately benefit higher-income households and are also economically inefficient) rather than by (just) raising marginal tax rates on the currently rather narrow definition of taxable income.

Two tax proposals new to the President鈥檚 budget this year that score well in this regard are: (i) the expansion of the limit of itemized deductions policy to a broader set of tax preferences鈥搃ncluding the exclusion of employer-provided health benefits (wow!); and (ii) letting the expiration of the Bush tax cuts for high-income households extend to the full expiration of preferential dividend tax rates, such that they would return to being taxed at full, ordinary income rates.

I wrote on Concord鈥檚 blog about the itemized deduction proposal.

I write about this 鈥淏uffett Rule route to fundamental tax reform鈥� among my other reactions to the tax policies in the President鈥檚 budget in my next Tax Notes column, which comes out next Monday.聽 I鈥檒l give a Cliff鈥檚 Notes version of that column here then.