Fiscal Policy

Tax reform is like the weather – everyone talks about it, but no one ever does anything about it. But unlike inclement weather, the problems of the tax system don’t go away; they continue to fester and compound. Today there are a number of unpleasant trends in the federal tax system that are crying out for attention:

For much of the last three decades, policy debates in the United States have been dominated by a quixotic concern about deficits, debt, and demographics. This concern has distracted policy from fundamental economic issues that have much more direct bearing on economic well-being, most notably the growth (and bursting) of the housing bubble in the last decade. While large deficits can have a negative impact on economic growth, this impact has been hugely misrepresented in public debates.

With the last of the three debates completed and the presidential election just around the corner, the New America Foundation has pulled together this video with people from our various policy teams to ask the candidates a few final questions about how they plan to govern. Check us out, tell us what you think, and if you seeeither candidate answering any of the questions, let us know--tweet to us at @NewHealthDialog and @NewAmerica!

Though the Assets Learning Conference is now more than a week past, one session that has stuck with me dealt with The Great Recession and its Impact on Wealth in Low-Income Communities and Communities of Color. Through deftly interwoven presentations from the Urban Institute, Woodstock Institute, and Ohio State University (moderated by the U.S.

In August 2003, some colleagues and I were held up by armed bandits on the highway in Fallujah, Iraq. (Don't ask why I was dumb enough to be wandering around Fallujah.) My bandit -- there were quite a few of them, but I like to think of the guy who stuck a gun in my face as my bandit -- was straight out of central casting, complete with a red kerchief around his mouth and nose to disguise his facial features.

The federal debt is the nation’s most pressing economic problem because our dangerously high debt levels are a threat on every issue — be it jobs, growth, competitiveness or public under-investment. The deficit is already harming the economy, and could eventually lead to a devastating fiscal crisis.

With the election season moving into higher gear and a “fiscal cliff” on the economic horizon, the American public will be hearing more and more about the crushing debt our country faces. As it happens, Idaho is extremely lucky to have two Members of Congress, Senator Mike Crapo and Representative Mike Simpson, who have been spearheading a growing, bipartisan charge to tackle the issue.

The Asset Building News Week is a weekly Friday feature on The Ladder, the Asset Building Program blog, designed to help readers keep up with news and developments in the asset building field. This week's topics include college financing, housing policy, consumer protection, and asset limits.

Matthew O’Brien over at The Atlantic had a piece up yesterday with the bold headline: “Why the Mortgage Interest Deduction is Terrible.” What he means (and does a solid job at explaining in the piece) is that the mortgage interest tax deduction primarily benefits homeowners in the top fifth of income earners. O’Brien writes, “We spend $100 billion every year -- that's the annual cost of the deduction -- subsidizing bigger houses for the upper middle class. This should be among the lowest of low-hanging fruit when it comes to tax reform. It would be nice to end welfare for the well-off.” He notes that the top 1% of earners (those making over half a million dollars a year) receive more benefit from the mortgage interest deduction than the entire bottom 56% of earners combined.

The Asset Building Program hosted an event Wednesday, July 11 to release the July/August issue of the Washington Monthly. The issue focuses on the importance and applicability of the asset building agenda in the lives of all Americans. Utilizing the magazine's focus as a frame for the event, our panelists tackled critical themes such as savings as a path to higher education, the importance of life-long savings mechanisms, the role of federal policies in promoting prosperity, and a growing political divide between young and old Americans.