dotblawg: 04/16/2006

Thursday, April 20, 2006

Succinct Summary of Republicanism

At least how I see it, from The Washington Monthly.

...but what's more striking about the GOP over the past 100 years or so is its continuity. The party's main, almost sole, purpose has been to ensure that as much money as possible goes to those who need it least and that as little as possible goes to those who need it most. In a party of moneybags, Theodore Roosevelt was the exception, not the rule.

I don't know if the author knew it, but he is paraphrasing Bill Maher, who said that Republican economic policy is underpinned by the belief that the Rich aren' t rich enough because the Poor are hoarding all the money.

The Complicated Tax Code

One election year promise of George W. Bush that I hoped would come to pass was simplification of the nation's byzantine tax code. Unfortunately, reports the Economist, W has made it even worse.

During the past five years America's tax code has become far more complex, somewhat less progressive, and has done less to improve incentives to work and save than first appearances suggest. [...] Tax rules were horribly complicated, of course, long before the Bush presidency, but during the past five years things have got much worse. The number of pages of federal tax regulations has risen by over 40%, from 46,900 in 2000 to 66,498 this year, according to Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute. The number of different tax forms issued by the Internal Revenue Service has soared from 475 in 2000 to 582.

On the other hand, I guess it was unrealistic of me for W to have success in even this simple goal. Why should this be any different than any other area of governance?