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America's tax code needs a serious overhaul. The last clean-up was in 1986, when Ronald Reagan turned away from his tax-slashing past to partner with a Democratic Congress and close loopholes, change rates, and broaden the tax base. Over the intervening decades, lobbyists have left their Gucci footprints all over the code, and our system is a bigger mess than ever -- one that should give both Democrats and Republicans pause.

For instance, America taxes corporations at the second-highest rate in the industrialized world but collects the fourth-lowest amount of corporate tax revenue. Why? Loopholes, special deductions, tax credits, subsidies, and shelters. Politically influential industries get special deals, distorting investment decisions and forcing overall tax rates higher than they need to be.

John McCain once seemed eager to pick up the reform mantle. A tough-talking conservative who wraps himself in the Gipper's legacy, inveighs against earmarks, calls himself a deficit hawk, and fought George Bush's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, McCain seemed to be one of the few politicians in America actually eager to restore some sense to the tax system. Then he decided to run for president.

To pay for his $300 billion a year in tax cuts, McCain has made only two significant proposals. He would freeze discretionary spending besides that on defense and veterans, saving about $15 billion but hurting good programs and bad, and he would eliminate earmarks, saving as much as $18 billion a year.

McCain initially claimed that eliminating earmarks would save $100 billion, but abandoned that claim after Scott Lilly pointed out that his figure included the entire Israel aid budget as well as military housing. Even the $18 billion figure is inflated since McCain now admits that some of these earmarks have value, like the ferry in the depressed Delta community he visited last week.

To pay for the rest of his tax cuts -- some $270 billion, nearly 90 percent of the total -- McCain turns to obfuscation. He promises to review a White House list of wasteful spending and a Treasury Department list of corporate tax loopholes and create a blue-ribbon commission that will, presumably, draw up another list that will need further review. But so far he has not endorsed actually cutting any programs on these lists.

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ORIGINAL: lronitulstahp

    Interesting that on these boards Germany is often hailed as a working  healthy economy...it is a nation of high taxation,and one in which social programs are often pushed.  Many of the people of Germany shrug, and pay taxes, becuase though no one LOVES to pay higer taxes, they understand the necessity...then of course, in Germany, poorer people don't bear the majority of responsibility...perhaps this nation could learn from that example.  But then again, as my mother often says "that's too much like right..."