Glenn Hubbard, who is dean of Columbia Business School and was chairman of President George W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, has a piece in the Wall Street Journal on taxes: "If the Obama administration's goal were truly fairness, it could propose an increase in the average tax rate on higher-income earners without raising marginal rates—for example, by limiting deductions."
Mr. Hubbard seems to have missed it, but the Obama administration has proposed precisely that. Here's an August 4, 2010 article from the Chronicle of Philanthropy: "In February, President Obama renewed a proposal he made last year to limit the value of charitable deductions for high-income taxpayers. The plan, which was not adopted by Congress a year ago, would limit to 28 percent the tax break couples that earn $250,000 (or individuals who earn $200,000) could get for their itemized deductions, such as charity gifts. The White House said the change would raise more than $291-billion from 2011 to 2020."
Call me a shill for President Obama (It'd be the first time in quite a while that anyone has called me that), but it seems a bit of a cheap shot to fault the president for having not proposed something that he already has proposed not once but twice.
Never mind the assumption in the first place that the average tax rate on higher-income earners should be increased, which is another story.
