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[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

This is from this early mornings Gray Lady, with which many of you astutes 
refuse to register, fearing dire consequences, so I offer it in full herewith:

Editorial
Tax Reform for Another Day

Published: October 27, 2005

Nearly 30 years ago, in the waning days of the Ford administration, a 
compendium of tax-reform proposals entitled "Blueprints for Basic Tax 
Reform" was pronounced dead on arrival in government offices throughout 
Washington. A decade later, many of the ideas bore fruit in the vast and 
generally constructive Tax Reform Act of 1986.

The final report of President Bush's tax reform panel, due Tuesday, may 
have a similar fate. Popular discontent with advance word on its 
recommendations is sure to spook Congress into inaction in the coming 
election year, especially on proposals to limit the mortgage-interest 
deduction, abolish the deduction for state and local taxes, and reduce the 
write-off for employer-provided health insurance.

Tackling a job as challenging as tax reform in a serious and fair way 
requires exceptional leadership. Even if Mr. Bush has the desire and 
ability to take on such a task, there is the danger that the midterm 
elections will leave him too much of a lame duck to do it. Bipartisanship 
is also essential to rewriting the tax code, and that is hardly this 
president's strong suit. Mr. Bush is not even likely to have the support of 
his own right wing, which wants a less progressive tax code than the panel 
envisions.

That's fine with us. The panel's expected report deserves the death 
sentence that awaits it - but not because it's entirely unworthy. The panel 
appears to have done an admirable job of addressing many difficult issues 
in a competent way. Even the limits on popular deductions, which have 
inspired visions of a dagger pointed at the heart of the middle class, are 
not as objectionable when combined with other proposed changes that would 
make up for the loss of valuable write-offs for working Americans.

What damns this particular effort are the constraints placed on it from the 
outset. Mr. Bush directed the panel to assume that the temporary tax cuts 
passed during his first term - which mainly benefit the wealthy - would be 
made permanent, rather than expiring as scheduled in the next two to four 
years. The president also told the panel that a reformed tax code should 
raise the same amount of revenue that would be raised by a tax system in 
which his tax cuts had been made permanent.

Those assumptions build in a huge cut in future revenues that would ensure 
never-ending deficits and, with them, either tax increases to narrow the 
gap or sharp reductions in vital government programs like Medicare and 
Social Security. In fact, the cost of making the tax cuts permanent is 
three times as large as the long-term shortfall in Social Security.

The country needs a better tax system. But the president's insistence on 
making his tax cuts permanent has undermined his panel's efforts to address 
long-term needs.

The short-term answer, however, is simple: Congress must stop the bleeding 
from this administration's reckless tax-cutting agenda.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/27/opinion/27thur2.html?hp