The world is ready to close the book on 2020 and start fresh in 2021, awaiting widespread vaccination, an end to the pandemic, and the beginning of a new chapter of economic recovery. With a fresh start in mind, and a healthy dose of optimism, here are three New Year’s resolutions for crafting better tax […]
Walter Williams, who taught millions of people economics throughout his long career, has died. He was the author of over 150 publications and a syndicated columnist, writing on many topics including tax, and often cited our research. He was a professor of economics at George Mason University, and I attended his microeconomics class nearly 20 […]
One of President Donald Trump’s signature policy actions has been to engage in a tit-for-tat tariff war with America’s trading partners, and one of the big questions is what President-elect Joe Biden will do about that. First, a brief review of where things stand. Relying on rarely used sections of trade law, President Trump used […]
October 2020 Update: Since our September analysis of the Biden plan, we have included the campaign proposal to expand the estate and gift tax by reducing the exemption amount to $3.5 million and increasing the top rate for the estate tax to 45 percent, which has impacted our economic, revenue, and distributional estimates. We have also […]
Supporters and critics of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s tax plan have made a variety of claims about the size of the tax proposals, ranging from “not big enough” to the “biggest tax increase in history.” Comparing his tax proposals—which include higher taxes on high-income earners and businesses paired with more generous provisions for households […]
Today, Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Martha McSally (R-AZ) introduced the CREATE JOBS Act (Cost Recovery and Expensing Acceleration to Transform the Economy and Jumpstart Opportunities for Businesses and Startups) that would make two significant changes to incentivize investment in the United States. The proposal would prevent scheduled changes that would worsen the tax treatment […]
Removing the tax code’s bias against long-term investment by implementing a neutral cost recovery system (NCRS) for structures and full expensing for other assets is estimated to increase economic growth and job creation. Using the Tax Foundation General Equilibrium Model, we estimate that permanent full expensing and neutral cost recovery for structures will add more […]
A recent Brookings Institution study points out that “even before the COVID-19 crisis, housing affordability and instability were serious problems.” The study outlines a number of goals and strategies for increasing the supply of affordable housing, including federal subsidies, low-cost loans, and grants. These may well be viable solutions, but what is missing are policies […]
As the economic recovery is debated amid the coronavirus pandemic, there have been growing calls to include additional public investment in infrastructure such as transportation, airports, buildings, and broadband. Many have argued that the United States has outdated infrastructure and that has weakened the nation’s economic productivity and global competitiveness. As policymakers start thinking about […]
The COVID-19 pandemic has damaged the American economy, as unemployment has skyrocketed. Despite job growth in May, the unemployment rate still sits at more than 13 percent, its highest point since the Great Depression. But even before the pandemic, American workers had experienced slow wage growth, for a variety of reasons. Policies to create jobs […]