The Week

Mr. Reagan broke loose the other day, hoisted a beer with some workers in a pub, and told some businessmen that the corporate tax ought to be abolished— a point that every responsible economist since Adam Smith has insisted on. But, uh-oh, by the next morning Mr. Gergen was telling the press that no such measure was being seriously considered. By afternoon, abolishing the corporate tax was, by common consent from the White House on down, the worst idea that ever slipped from a man’s tongue. Case closed. But the unguarded Mr. Reagan was exactly right—the corporate tax is a sham, turning corporations into tax collectors, with the tax passed on to consumers at a healthy mark-up. Abolish it.

The National Commission on Social Security Reform has issued a press release to correct its previous press release, in which it had incorrectly reported that its recommendations would save the system $168 billion over seven years. The amended figure was that the commission’s recommendations would actually save the system $169 billion. This was reported in good humor (a billion here, a billion there . . .), and nobody mentioned that the commission has—far from saving anything at all—enhanced all the worst features of the system and added an enormous new tax burden, financed by confiscating private savings.

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Mr. Reagan broke loose the other day, hoisted a beer with some workers in a pub, and told some businessmen that the corporate tax ought to be abolished— a point that every responsible economist since Adam Smith has insisted on. But, uh-oh, by the next morning Mr. Gergen was telling the press that no such measure was being seriously considered. By afternoon, abolishing the corporate tax was, by common consent from the White House on down, the worst idea that ever slipped from a man’s tongue. Case closed. But the unguarded Mr. Reagan was exactly right—the corporate tax is a sham, turning corporations into tax collectors, with the tax passed on to consumers at a healthy mark-up. Abolish it.

The National Commission on Social Security Reform has issued a press release to correct its previous press release, in which it had incorrectly reported that its recommendations would save the system $168 billion over seven years. The amended figure was that the commission’s recommendations would actually save the system $169 billion. This was reported in good humor (a billion here, a billion there . . .), and nobody mentioned that the commission has—far from saving anything at all—enhanced all the worst features of the system and added an enormous new tax burden, financed by confiscating private savings.