Tax Reform

WASHINGTON -- On the third anniversary of their "Contract with America," Republican leaders in Congress have begun a concerted drive to move beyond their signature issue of tax cuts and shift the national debate to a radical revision of the tax code.The push toward fundamentally revising the progressive income tax, or scrapping it altogether, comes as the Republican Party begins an intense internal debate over a fiscal agenda to follow the balanced-budget agreement. It also reflects the fact that pollsters say voters are becoming less responsive to simple promises of tax cuts.

Conservative Republicans in our nation's capital have managed to accomplish something they only dreamed of when tea partiers streamed into Congress at the start of 2011. They've basically shut down Congress. Their refusal to compromise is working just as they hoped: No jobs agenda. No budget. No grand bargain on the deficit. No background checks on guns. Nothing on climate change. No tax reform. No hike in the minimum wage. Nothing so far on immigration reform. It's as if an entire branch of the federal government -- the branch that's supposed to deal directly with the nation's problems, not just execute the law or interpret the law but make the law -- has gone out of business, leaving behind only a so-called "sequester" that's cutting deeper and deeper into education, infrastructure, programs for the nation's poor, and national defense.

Newt's welfare and tax reform: The trouble with the country is that the poor are too rich and the rich are too poor, and we must redistribute income accordingly.If the NLRB converts the baseball strike to a lockout, that's progress?The Oscar for best supporting role by an actress goes to Mrs. Clinton, touring South Asia, baking cookies and standing by her man.

WASHINGTON -- In the wrangling between the White House and the Republican congressional majority over tax reform, no one is considering a levy with the greatest long-term potential to redress the budget deficit, environmental degradation and the burden of heavy taxation.2 Ed Flattau writes a column on the environment.

The midterm elections that gave control of Congress to the Democrats also brought widespread predictions of paralysis in Washington. But is divided government a recipe for inaction? Not necessarily. Divided government can produce good policy, especially on the budget, while one-party rule does not guarantee positive results. We learned these lessons firsthand while working inside the budget machinery of the White House under two different administrations. During the Clinton years, a Democratic president and a Republican-led Congress exchanged frequent rhetorical fire but ultimately produced some of the best federal fiscal policies in decades - balancing the budget, limiting spending, and still investing more in education, research and other priorities.

WASHINGTON -- As the White House prepares to name a panel on tax reform, the labyrinthine U.S. revenue code could face the first top-to-bottom rewrite since President Ronald Reagan closed loopholes and slashed income tax rates on a historic scale in 1986. "This is a fundamental look at the entire code, every component of the code," a senior administration official said late last week. "Nothing is off the table." Yet some political analysts and policy advocates believe the result could turn out to be considerably more modest.

Under gray, stormy clouds, William Donald Schaefer was sworn in yesterday for a second term as Maryland governor. It was a fitting portrait: In the face of bad economic news and war in the Persian Gulf, Mr. Schaefer's public mood was upbeat. Realistically upbeat. He intends to remain an activist chief executive.His immediate objectives are four-fold: comprehensive tax reform; statewide growth controls; crime prevention, and unifying Maryland. These he promised to accomplish while giving voters what they seemed to demand in November's elections -- better-run, lower-cost government with leaders willing to make tough decisions.

Apart from natural disasters, most of this week's biggest news is likely to come from Washington, D.C., where the hot topics are expected to include alleged crime in high places, tax reform, the war on terror, budget cutting and a continuing judicial standoff. ROVE, LIBBY & FITZGERALD -- Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the prosecutor in the CIA leak case, is expected to make known this week whether he intends to bring indictments against Karl Rove, President Bush's senior adviser, and/or I. Lewis Libby Jr.,Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, for alleged crimes related, directly or indirectly, to a leak of the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame.

Bolstered by the cheers of more than 1,000 supporters, the leaders of one of Baltimore's most powerful grass-roots organizations sent a blunt message yesterday to the city's General Assembly delegation:Bring home a bill from Annapolis next year that eliminates statewide inequities in school funding or start looking for a new job."We have our eyes on the city delegation, and our vision is good, and our memory is eternal," warned the Rev. Curtis Jones, co-chair of BUILD -- Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development -- at its 1991 meeting at the Convention Center.

WASHINGTON -- In a time-tested show of political theater, Republican leaders will dump the entire U.S. tax code into Boston Harbor today, as though confident that tax reform will soon make the loathsome load a thing of the past.But unlike the crates of tea jettisoned by Colonial patriots, the tax books will be attached to a strong tether. And once the cameras switch off and the crowds dissipate, workmen will haul all 101,295 pages back from the deep, proving symbolically what Washington knows full well: Neither the politicians nor the public are ready to bury the tax system just yet."