Posted on 10/21/2011 6:23:36 AM PDT by decimon
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Tax reform can happen in the United States. President Ronald Reagan and a divided Congress defiantly proved it 25 years ago this Saturday.
On both sides of the acrimonious tax debate, no event is held in such awe today as the historical moment when Reagan signed tax reform into law on October 22, 1986.
"All of the betting was that (reform) was impossible," said Michael Graetz, a tax professor at Columbia Law School.
But it got done. Even now, tax lobbyists still shake their heads in disbelief at the 1986 reform. The fact that no comparable achievement has followed, a quarter-century and four presidents later, makes the feat all the more remarkable.
And it begs the obvious question.
With the U.S. fiscal situation so much more dire, why is it not happening now? Even with wide agreement in both parties that the tax code is a loophole-ridden jumble of inefficiency and unfairness, even tentative reform has been unattainable.
The answers are four-fold, said academics and some of the tax experts who helped craft the reform of 25 years ago:
First, glaring loopholes are fewer today; second, the deficit's size blocks agreement on revenue neutrality; third, Reagan raised corporate taxes, but this is harder now; and fourth, a lower capital gains rate is more deeply entrenched.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
History has shown us that nothing is impossible when real Americans put their minds to doing the impossible.
I agree, to a point. I am reminded of Zig Zigler talking about the power of positive thinking. He said it has its place but can be dangerous. At the time I heard him he was in his later years (he had to be helped on stage). He said NO amount of positive thinking could allow him, at that point, to be a professional basketball player. It wold be reasonable and prudent for a man in his condition to apply positive thinking to things that are actually attainable by someone like him.
And I look at our current situation similarly. I compare our current situation sometimes to the titanic, but here I’d like to compare it to a Greyhound bus driving down the freeway at 70 MPH. If, when Reagan was the “bus driver”, he saw trouble ahead, he could gently press the brakes and lower the speed (i.e. moderately change the tax law) with very positive results.
However, today the bus is going 70 mph and the driver looks up from his cell phone to see a collapsed bridge 50 feet ahead and a canyon 600 feet below. What do you suggest he does? Do you think replacing him with a different driver, say, Cain, will fix it?
To leave the analogy and go back to the real world: The passengers are on their own. In my case, I bought a farm in a rural area, left the city, got a tractor and implements, am building a very large sheet metal building for storage, work, etc., silver, gold, guns, ammo, and will try to protect those for whom I am responsible as best as I can.
The government is in way over their head and really can only watch the tires skid for 50’ before we plunge into the ravine still at almost full speed. Frankly, I get the feeling the guys in control right now are actually stepping on the gas and hoping we can do an Evel Knevel flight to the other side.
And I actually DO think we are going to go out in a blaze of glory, so to speak. It’s gonna be a big deal. The biggest deal in the history of mankind.
—Those creeping into Alternative Minimum Tax land are dealing with a variant of the species.—
It hit me. I was very surprised. Fortunately, I was able to move to a part of the country where the cost of living is significantly lower and I also took a cut in pay to slip under the AMT.
The guy that is at the wheel now, needs to be pulled from that position and ejected from the bus.
—The guy that is at the wheel now, needs to be pulled from that position and ejected from the bus.—
Well, yeah. But my point is that it really won’t matter to the rest of us, other than the fact that he will be the first to go over the edge. We’re all going over.
Oh, and I strongly see this as international. It isn’t just the US.
Reagan bought tax reform from the Democrats at the huge cost of accepting and expanding their social spending agenda. What could a Romney or Perry use to buy Congressional assent this time?
Reagan did compromise with the ‘progressives’ and gave them 1/2 a loaf. Today they’re coming after the other half.
My point is that as much damage that Ubama and his Marxist minions have inflicted (thus far) to our economy, WE are still America. We have faced greater challenges, dangers and threats than this and have come out fine. We have done so BECAUSE of our American Exceptional-ism and shall do so again.
Count on it.
Not to diminish Reagan’s accomplishment, but all he did was tweak some knobs, which is nothing compared with replacing the entire system as a flat tax, vat, or 9-9-9 would do.
—We have done so BECAUSE of our American Exceptional-ism and shall do so again.—
We are not the same country that we were. Sorry, we’re just not. Also, the problems are different this time. e.g. during World Depression I (WDI) our government was not in debt. It had a surplus. And the public also did not carry the debt. I could go on, but the fundamentals are so different now with WDII that a completely different skill set is needed to solve this. And just as with WDI, what will end it is war. Whoever survives will pick up the pieces and do ok, just as Hiroshima and Nagasaki are now, assuming we are not headed into Ezekiel 38, 39, the 70th week of Daniel and Revelation - which I think we are.
Sorry, but I refuse to share your defeatist attitude.
That he managed to have any accomplishment earns him accolades.
However...this Ronaldus Magnus stuff is foolish and self-defeating for conservatives. The idea of the man on the white horse should be anathema to conservatives.
—Sorry, but I refuse to share your defeatist attitude.—
I very much understand. I am Hank Reardon (a bit late to the “defeatist” side, but firmly on board). You are Dagney Taggart.
Give it time. :-)
I agree.
Let's say that we cut taxes and that results in an improved economy which increases the amount of tax money going to D.C. and state governments. Politicians simply spend that additional money. That additional spending may temporarily pump the economy into some 'bubble.' That yields yet more tax monies and more government spending.
Then the bubble bursts and we're stuck with the increased government spending and no way to support it.
That may not not be the best example but I think it gives the idea.
Not quite sure how to take this.
—Not quite sure how to take this.—
Reference to Atlas Shrugged. If you have not read it, it’s hard to take it any way. ;-)
I call my new place in Kentucky “Galt’s Plateau”.
I was telling my republican friends, back in 2008, that they may not want their guy to win the election because whichever party won would be blamed for the hurt coming down. But I didn’t think they could so successfully continue to kick the can down the road as they have, though ensuring that when this thing does pop it will be a bigger bang than originally thought.
I do not consider my position defeatist. I consider it realistic. When doing a risk assessment I am required to factor in the likelihood of a bad thing happening, the impact if it does happen, and the cost of mitigating the risk.
In my analysis of what has been going on the last 100 years and, specifically, the last five, I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that we are headed for the biggest worldwide crash in the history of mankind. There is no human solution to this. It will either end in world war or the establishment of the Antichrist - or both. The problems are just too big and cannot be resolved without massive debt and crime forgiveness, which will alienate many, many people and some countries. This will result in conflict followed by armed conflict. There is no way out of this short of aliens coming down and “fixing” this. I’m not holding out for that.
With that in mind, I find my options limited to “surviving” what happens. Starting two weeks before Obama was elected I started putting it all into action. And as events have progressed, I’m more convinced than ever that I was right to do so. It is, frankly, one of the few things I have gotten right. If you were to take yourself from five years ago and say that the world would be where it is today, and specifically the US, you would have called it a doomsday scenario. But we’ve lived it and gotten used to the change and don’t see it for the significance that it holds.
Watch the movie, The Pianist, to get a feel for how people can adapt to changing times with the false hope that it will work out in the end. Sometimes you have to do what is best for your own family and not put your trust in your government. Sometimes this means creating your own “Galt’s Gulch”.
And if you have not read Atlas Shrugged, you really need to. Sure, it gets a bit preachy in places and it’s rather thick, but the parallels in the world in that story to what is actually happening in our world today will make the hair on the back of your neck stand up.
And then remember that those things sounded patently absurd just a few short years ago. Especially in the US.
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