Making Tax Day Less Painful While Reducing Deficits

[Terri]

By Andrew L. Yarrow
April 11, 2008

Marie Antoinette is said to have asked Louis XVI's finance minister," What are you going to do about the deficit?" To which, the good minister--not unlike many an American politician today--purportedly answered: "Nothing Madame. It is too serious."

With a national debt of $9.3 trillion and rapidly growing, federal debt is serious, and failing to balance spending with revenues portends serious long-term pain for the American people, economy, and government if nothing is done.

The elephant in the room is entitlement spending, but it is worth considering the role of our tax system, not tax rates, in exacerbating America's debt. Liberals and conservatives can disagree about tax rates or types of taxes, but few disagree that how the United States collects taxes could not be much more dysfunctional.

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