Responsible Republicans

Great piece by Jacob Weisberg in Slate today about the loss of responsible government among Republicans. It was last prominent in the early days of the Reagan presidency and last practiced by the responsible Bush presidency - that was the first one.

Responsible conservatism is so important in our democratic republic, and it is a shame that the moderate voices of the GOP have been so crowded out. Hopefully, the Lindsay Graham's and the Judd Gregg's become the new leaders of the party.

Hopefully.

Tax Reform that Works?

Congressmen Judd Gregg of New Hampshire and Ron Wyden of Oregon - two of my favorite pragmatic and rational problem solvers - are proposing a serious, and I mean serious, tax reform bill that makes so much sense, it will never pass. They propose to simply the tax code, eliminating thousands of deductions and offering three simple, progressive brackets. It also proposes lowering the corporate tax rate to a flat 24%. I am definitely intrigued.

However, while it proposes to be a deficit neutral bill, that quality will do nothing to alleviate a trillion dollar deficit and a $12 trillion debt. Additionally, the GOP-side continues to push the corporate rate change on a comparison to other countries - even though, because of deductions, most American corporations pay almost nothing in taxes as it is now. I don't see corporations giving up all their deductions and increasing their tax liability to 24%, but we will see.

With those problems, I don't see a lot of hope. But it's better than the status quo.