Tricky Dick

IN the fall of 1985, an ambitious fifth-term congressman wrote an article for the Cato Journal-a publication of the libertarian Cato Institute -inveighing against tax loopholes. As entitlements and defense spending grew, the congressman explained, “The only place we politicians could find to spend money was the place that nobody noticed-the tax code.” So, “Different groups of individuals were handed tax breaks, tax goodies, loopholes, incentives, or whatever you want to call them. In essence, what was taking place was a forgiveness of taxation in return for a change in some kind of behavior.”

All of this was a bad idea, he argued, because no one knew the ultimate consequences of the meddling, and it distracted from the goal of keeping tax rates low. By a year or so later, Rep. Dick Gephardt, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, presidential aspirant, and former Cato Journal contributor, had gone AWOL from Sen. Bill Bradley’s tax-reform bill, which he himself had co-sponsored, and that sought the simplified tax code about which he had written so earnestly. Gephardt was too busy campaigning in Iowa, talking up ideas like mandatory agricultural production controls.

IN the fall of 1985, an ambitious fifth-term congressman wrote an article for the Cato Journal-a publication of the libertarian Cato Institute -inveighing against tax loopholes. As entitlements and defense spending grew, the congressman explained, “The only place we politicians could find to spend money was the place that nobody noticed-the tax code.” So, “Different groups of individuals were handed tax breaks, tax goodies, loopholes, incentives, or whatever you want to call them. In essence, what was taking place was a forgiveness of taxation in return for a change in some kind of behavior.”

All of this was a bad idea, he argued, because no one knew the ultimate consequences of the meddling, and it distracted from the goal of keeping tax rates low. By a year or so later, Rep. Dick Gephardt, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, presidential aspirant, and former Cato Journal contributor, had gone AWOL from Sen. Bill Bradley’s tax-reform bill, which he himself had co-sponsored, and that sought the simplified tax code about which he had written so earnestly. Gephardt was too busy campaigning in Iowa, talking up ideas like mandatory agricultural production controls.