Short article on tax reform and the risk of a U.S. budget catastrophe

As is discussed here, the University of Louisville Law Review is holding a Symposium on Federal Deficit Reduction on October 22, 2011. I have agreed to speak at the event, and relatedly to submit a short paper for publication in the symposium issue. Short as in, strict 25 page limit.

I've completed a draft, entitled "Tax Reform Implications of the Risk of a U.S. Budget Catastrophe," taking the form of a VERY swift run through the questions of why we face a potential budget catastrophe, how it might affect one's thinking about income tax reform, and what new taxes might be introduced (e.g., a VAT, carbon tax, financial transactions tax, and/or financial activities tax).

I'll probably post it on SSRN on due course, but am holding off for now because the current draft pretends that there is no impending default crisis with regard to the debt ceiling. The reason for the pretence is that it would be silly to spend time writing about it until we see how it comes out, which will be after my time window for completing the draft but well before the piece is ultimately published. Once that happy time comes, I hope to update and post the draft in fairly short order.