America’s Tax Cut Era Must End

For more than two decades, America has pursued a policy as costly as the New Deal of the 1930s or the Great Society of the 1960s, but with a much narrower aim: cut taxes. Judging from the Congressional Budget Office’s latest forecasts, it has gone much too far. Extending the provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which are set to expire next year, will add an estimated $4 trillion to the federal government’s already perilously high debts.

One must hope the price tag will be shocking enough to focus attention on the three big problems of the US tax system: It’s unfair, unbalanced and underperforming.