A Tax Reform to Run With

$5,000 per child, and other winning ideas THE Republican party is going through a rough patch right now. To the extent that it has a strategy for getting through it, the strategy does not involve promoting popular legislation. Republicans seem to be out of ideas, or at least ideas they think will work under the political circumstances of the moment.

Usually, when Republicans find themselves in political trouble, they turn to the tax issue. But the deficit is constraining them from doing that. They are finding it too hard to hold on to their past tax cuts to offer any large new ones.

About the Author

Ramesh Ponnuru

Ramesh Ponnuru is the editor of National Review, a columnist for the Washington Post, and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

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$5,000 per child, and other winning ideas THE Republican party is going through a rough patch right now. To the extent that it has a strategy for getting through it, the strategy does not involve promoting popular legislation. Republicans seem to be out of ideas, or at least ideas they think will work under the political circumstances of the moment.

Usually, when Republicans find themselves in political trouble, they turn to the tax issue. But the deficit is constraining them from doing that. They are finding it too hard to hold on to their past tax cuts to offer any large new ones.