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What a Tangled Web We Weave

When we pursue policy objectives through tax loopholes.

Jan 17, 2005, Vol. 10, No. 17 • By ANDREW FERGUSON
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DISCOUNTING FOR AN UNDERWATER EARTHQUAKE that sent 40-foot-high waves traveling thousands of miles across the open sea to inflict death and destruction on an unimaginable scale, it was kind of a sleepy holiday for the Washington political community, newswise. So you can understand the titillation that shimmered through the capital when the local paper announced, a few days after Christmas, that President Bush might delay his plan to "simplify" the tax code! "Bush Expected to Delay Major Tax Overhaul," said the headline in the Washington Post. At last there was something else to talk about on Inside Politics.

Really, though, no one should have been surprised. There was always something mysterious and unaccounted for about President Bush's pledge to make tax simplification a top item on his agenda. He first made this pledge in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in August last year. Big, important speeches like that need a theme, also known as a "vision for the future," and thus tax reform was presented as part of the president's wide-angle belief that "many of our most fundamental systems . . . were created for the world of yesterday, not tomorrow." Therefore, he said, "we will transform these systems." The president sees himself as a modernizer. In particular, "the current tax code is a complicated mess--filled with special interest loopholes." After the applause had died down, he went on: "In a new term, I will lead a bipartisan effort to reform and simplify the federal tax code."

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