Squeezing Money Out Of The Tax Code

Republicans sound like they are open to eliminating tax breaks and loopholes. But Ezra Klein doubts Republicans or Democrats are willing to “raise serious amounts of revenue by going after the big tax breaks”:

According to the Tax Policy Center, the largest tax expenditures, in order, are the breaks for employer-provided health care, pension contributions, mortgage interest, depreciation of capital equipment, state and local tax payments, and charitable contributions. We’re not talking ethanol credits here, and we’re not even talking about tax breaks for special interests. We’re talking about tax preferences for the middle class.

And that’s why it’s hard to make the case for major cuts in these breaks while proposing no sacrifice from the top echelon. It all goes together in my mind: shared sacrifice, bipartisan pain, fiscal revival.