Monday, January 17, 2005

The Tax Reform Commission

As I noted in a previous post, Grover Norquist is a classic inside-the-Beltway bunco salesman and shakedown artist who pretends to favor smaller government but in fact is working hard to install an omnipotent Republican political machine that would make Boss Tweed proud. But at least he sets us straight about the Tax Reform Commission:
''It'll come out with three or four proposals, which are already written, and already on people's desks,'' he told the NY Times reporter. ''So this is not a commission to invent something, or several somethings. This is a commission to discuss several somethings. Poke 'em, bring 'em around the country, test-fly them, run 'em up the flagpole, see who shoots at it, see who salutes.''
Since there are some principled people on the Tax Reform Commission, let's hope they don't let themselves be used in a bad way. And let's hope they emphasize the use of infinite horizon forecasting for tax reform, no less than Social Security. Beth Garrett and Jim Poterba (among others), are you listening?

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