Nevin's Data "Points"

Last week, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) outlined his overall goals for comprehensive tax reform, noting that he planned to use both the Domenici-Rivlin debt reduction plan and the fiscal recommendations of the president's Simpson-Bowles Commission(1) as the “starting points for full-scale tax reform,” citing the former in commenting that “‘Everything must be on the table' when it comes to tax and entitlement reform."   The New York Times last Monday reported a “Push for a Fiscal Pact Picks Up Speed, and Power,” even as other published reports suggested that lawmakers would look to defer those votes until after the November elections. Those headlines echoed the sense that EBRI CEO and President Dallas Salisbury outlined last month to the EBRI board of trustees at their spring meeting—a sense that broad-based tax reform would be the focus of Congress, with fiscal issues driving a focus on the macro impact of policies rather than the micro outcome...

While the markets were in an apparent freefall last week, I could hear former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulsen on the TV in the next room telling (lecturing?) the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission that the problems that led to the 2008 meltdown could, and should, have been dealt with sooner, and that we could, and should, have moved faster—and with more to stave off the crisis. The criticism then—as it was last week in Europe—was that this was a time to act, not to think; that if we didn’t act—act now, act decisively, and without question—well, the results would be catastrophic. It is a theme that runs through Paulsen’s recent book, “On the Brink,” as he drags the reader from one impending crisis to another during those fateful weeks of 2008. In Paulsen’s retelling, those who back his “need for speed” are thoughtful and prescient; those who don’t, well, their motivations are generally painted as either blinded to the seriousness of the situation or hopelessly ideological. From the...