Tax Reform Vision

It seems that our tax code is disliked by both the republicans and the democrats, and that “almost everybody disagrees with the basic outline.” With this knowledge, David Brooks suggests Obama use tax reforms as a way of “reintroducing” the parties to each other, and as a way to bring about consensus on other polarized issues such as the environment and healthcare. Brooks goes on to say that tax reform could “change the tone in Washington,” and act as a platform from which attention could be shifted for “the same-old big government-versus-small government debate toward more concrete challenges: shifting resources from unproductive consumption to more productive investment.” One of the unfortunate qualities of party politics is that the stark polarization creates a somewhat unproductive environment (in my opinion), and it is one of the reasons that the senate functions at such a glacial pace. For lack of a better phrase, I think that Americans need to “bite the bullet” and for parties need to shed some of the extreme political allegiance that has now come to plague Washington. Maybe transformations would be made that some Americans aren’t happy with, but I think Brooks follows the logic that any kind of change is more likely to lower our federal deficit, lower carbon emissions, and make healthcare more widespread, then simply remaining at political ceasefires would.