Republic Senator Jerry Moran and Democrat Senator Mark Warner have introduced another way of cluttering up the US Federal Tax Code -- the "Startup Act." (See their editorial in today's Wall Street Journal). This is another "targeted" tax measure that puts more pages in the federal tax code, is another bonanza for tax lawyers, is another way to pick winners and losers by using the tax code.
Warner, who never saw a tax he couldn't support or a new regulation that he couldn't back, is always positioning himself as a moderate. In fact, he and Nancy Pelosi think alike on everything of substance. Who knows how Senator Moran got duped into supporting this? But, Moran is from Kansas, after all.
Like all good ideas that get inserted into the tax code. This one promises major tax benefits to rich people like Mark Warner without any real hope of moving the needle for the unemployed or those at the bottom of the economic pile.
What is needed is true tax reform and simplification, not more clutter in the tax code with someone's next great idea. Great ideas get amended and amended so that only the Warren Buffetts of the world can truly derive any benefit. Meanwhile, the average American picks up the tab for the taxes that the truly wealthy, like Mark Warner, have no intention of paying.
If Warner and Moran wanted to do something for the jobs market, try eliminating minimum wage laws. That would provide more jobs quicker than any other measure that Congress could consider.
It's time the politicians stopped dreaming up new ideas to make the federal tax code worse and thought about returning to free market policies and reducing the reach of big government.
