Michael Tomasky points to tax expenditures, deductions and loopholes for individuals and corporations, as the way out of our deficit trouble. He's obviously right. It's rare that you get a chance to reduce tax rates and increase tax revenues. You'd think this would be a Republican dream, as it was for Reagan in 1986. But not the vast majority of today's GOP:
Eliminating deductions is really hard. Lowering overall rates is really easy. And politicians tend to do what’s easy, especially when one of the two parties considers the hard work to be a venal sin. Republicans have classified elimination of tax expenditures as tax increases, and they won’t do it. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) might. Two other GOP senators might.
Of all 287 elected Republicans in Washington, just those—three—have indicated that they might support elimination of some loopholes. Besides which, powerful lobbies are organized to keep that home-mortgage deduction in place, to say nothing of the corporate ones. This is why tax expenditures are so important. They cost $1.1 trillion a year, and given that we’re not going to increase income taxes much if at all, putting the squeeze on the deductions is the only way to generate revenue and prevent asphyxiating cuts to the domestic budget.
I favor some asphyxiating cuts to entitlements as well. But the beauty of tax reform is that it has Reagan's imprimatur, cuts the deficit in serious ways and also takes aim at the army of lobbyists whose entire job it is to retain those corporate and personal give-aways. It beats me why Obama and the Dems don't simply offer this proposal along with a cut in payroll taxes. That's a very progressive avenue for debt reduction, don't you think?
The Dish 