Tax reform is back on the policy agenda as President Obama and Republican hopeful Mitt Romney each submitted two different frameworks for tax reform. While both parties say they want to change the current system, any tax reform package must have bipartisan consensus to succeed and in the current political environment that seems like a distant possibility.
Yet a forum recently held by the Common Ground Committee, a non-profit group dedicated to changing our culture by promoting civil discourse on controversial policy issues, might just prove that there is actually some agreement on both sides of the political aisle.
Jared Bernstein, senior fellow at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities and former adviser to Vice President Biden debated this issue with Art Laffer, the father of "supply side" economics and former economic adviser to President Reagan. The goal: to debate the facts with the ultimate challenge of identifying points of consensus without compromising core principles.
What they agreed upon might surprise you. Here are their areas of common ground:
- The current tax system is too complex. We need a simple, fair tax code. Currently there are too many loopholes and too much incentive for tax avoidance.