You know you are in the silly season when the charges against sensible tax reform become more and more outrageous. The silliest and most outrageous is based on this causal reasoning: The Republican tax measure repeals the Obamacare mandate, requiring people to purchase health insurance; without the mandate, fewer people will insure; and without insurance, more people will die.
As the House and the Senate hash out their differences, it now appears that for the first time in 31 years, we are going to get major reform of our federal income tax system.
The GOP tax plan should do three things. It should expand the economy while raising wages. It should pay for itself. And it should be fair.
Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers wrote an op ed for the Washington Post on October 8 calling the Trump Administration’s tax plan “an atrocity.”
Greg Mankiw (Harvard) weighs in to show that there are theoretically large gains to labor when you reduce taxes on capital. Casey Mulligan (Chicago) cites Larry Summers’ own work to make a point that has long been standard fare in economics: a tax on capital is ultimately born by labor, not owners of capital. Alan Auerbach(Berkley) apparently agrees. See also John Cochrane (Stanford) and Steve Landsburg(Rochester).
As I’ve written, the House Republican tax bill has a lot to recommend it, including to Democrats. It needs some tweaks and proper transition rules to ensure it’s at least revenue neutral and as progressive as the current system (which, as you can read here, is far more progressive than commonly believed).