The Next Great Theft?

Max B. Sawicky
October 13, 2005

Max B. Sawicky is an economist at the Economic Policy Institute. He can be reached at his blog, MaxSpeak, You Listen!

With the death of his Social Security privatization scheme, President Bush is trying to resuscitate his domestic agenda with an electric slide to tax reform. Some things never change: Doubtless, Bush will try to continue comforting the comfortable and afflicting the afflicted by shifting the tax burden from the wealthy to everyone else. How he will try and do it this time around remains to be seen.

The next shoe to drop will be the report of his Advisory Commission on Tax Reform. The commission is scheduled to deliver its recommendations on November 1. We may have gotten a sneak peek in the past few days, as commission members have floated a few trial balloons. The chief option put forward is to eliminate the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), which would be a tax cut for relatively wealthy, and to replace the cut revenue by reducing or eliminating deductions for health insurance, home mortgage interest and state and local income tax.