A new analysis of the Republican tax overhaul from the liberal-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reaches a simple conclusion: the legislation is so deeply flawed that it needs to be rewritten.
CBPP’s Chuck Marr, Brendan Duke and Chye-Ching Huang identify three fundamental problems with the new tax law:
- It makes income inequality worse while ignoring the wage stagnation experienced by millions of American workers.
- It reduces federal revenues despite an aging population and rising health care costs.
- It makes the tax code more complex and invites “rampant tax gaming” by businesses.
The authors of the 24-page report provide extensive data to support their claims — Huang tweeted that “This has quite possibly been through more iterations of drafting & more review by external folk than the GOP tax law itself” — and include plenty of charts along the way.
In the end, the authors argue that the legislation’s problems are so fundamental that they cannot be fixed by tinkering with the rules. “Instead of pursuing minor fixes or technical corrections to the law, policymakers should set a new course and pursue true tax reform that avoids the regressiveness of this law and accords more favorable treatment to working people with low or modest incomes; raises revenue to meet national needs; and improves economic efficiency and strengthens the integrity of the tax code.”
You can review the full analysis here.
