Under the Rubic that even a busted clock is right twice daily, David Brooks make sense..,

[WCGreen]

I am an accountant. I prepare taxes for a living so I know how onerous the tax code can be. It is littered with nuggets and mines throughout the code.

I think change has to come on the order of the 1986 overhaul.

Brooks thinks that president Obama can seize the agenda by championing tax code reform if the republicans agree to a one year extension of the tax cuts and a one year extension of unemployment...

Well, here, I'll let him tell it...


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/03/opinion/03brooks.html?src=un&feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Fjson8.nytimes.com%2Fpages%2Fopinion%2Findex.jsonp

Sometime over the next couple of weeks, President Obama issues a statement that reads: “Over the past several months, Republicans and Democrats have been fighting over what to do with the Bush tax cuts. I have my own views, but it’s not worth having a big fight over a tax code we all hate. Therefore, I’m suspending this debate. We will extend the Bush rates for everybody for one year, along with unemployment benefits. But during that year we will enact a comprehensive tax reform plan.

“The plan we will work on this year will look a bit like the 1986 reform plan. We will clean out the loopholes. We will take on the special interests. We will lower rates and make the tax code fair.”

Then Obama asks his aides to come up with a tax reform proposal he can lay before Congress. The State of the Union, he knows, is the one big chance he will have to redefine himself before the American people. On the big night, Obama stands before Congress. He gestures over to a giant stack of papers. “This is our tax code,” he tells the American people. “It’s rotten and we’re scrapping it.”


Now I don't really think all that much of David Brooks but this seems to make sense to me...

I would gladly take a hit in my income in order to simplify and clarify the tax code.

No one should be paying me to do their taxes. Most of the people I have as customers just feel better having someone else do their taxes.

The code is ridiculous.

But it's been good to me...

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. David Brooks does indeed make sense, here...

And do we have even the snowball's chance in hell that Obama will do anything even close to this?

Well, let me put it this way: If he does, I will largely revise my views of his Presidency.

Oh, and for the better, BTW...

Greatest Page for this excellent thread.