Obama White House Accepting Public Comment on Tax Reform

With Americans sharply split over how to fix the economy, one thing the right and left agree upon in stereo is dissatisfaction, fed up with the detachment of Congress, taxpayer bailouts and  runaway debt spending. Everyone seems to have a gripe, but Obama wants to know who has solutions.

Getting very little press, President Obama’s PERAB (President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board) is where Obama’s economic wunderkind Austan Goolsbee was stashed away after the election, working under Paul Volcker, former Fed Chairman for Presidents Reagan and Carter.

PERAB is an advisory-only panel designed to review input and ideas from across the country and from all quarters, including the financial sector, industry and average American citizens just like you.

Since it’s first fully-transparent official meeting with the President (full video, full transcript), PERAB has opened their doors to leaders in business, labor and policymaking to discuss investment in infrastructure, green jobs initiatives such as home retrofitting, the role of community banks and credit unions, manufacturing and healthcare.

But PERAB is also going further, soliciting public and private input on a spectrum of tax reform proposals including filing simplification, shoring up enforcement and retooling our tricky corporate tax codes. PERAB is not, however, considering changes that would raise taxes on families making under $250,000.

PERAB will be compiling recommendations into an “almanac” of options that will be presented to President Obama, representing a broad range of viewpoints. Hundreds of suggestions have already been submitted by individuals, business groups and advocacy organizations, available for public viewing here.

Just this week, grants were distributed for 51 strategic transportaion projects including roads, rail, bridge repairs and more, demonstrating that PERAB initiatives do (eventually) find their way into real legislation. Last month, Goolsbee’s white paper became central to the White House proposal to limit risk-taking by banks who were recipients of bailout funding, curbing proprietary trading, hedge fund activity and more.

We should all endorse those reforms that increase economic and environmental sustainability, emphasizing localization, job creation and job retention over short-sighted wealth-creation. We should also advocate for regionalizing food supply lines, greater transparency in government and strengthening of the Earned Income Tax credit which recognizes the efforts of hard working families, manufacturing, production and service above “passive” income derived from dividends, investing, inheritance and other forms of “paper pushing” that benefit the already-rich.

Many do not realize it was then-governor Reagan who helped develop the Earned Income Tax credit as he successfully sought to incentivize work-over-welfare in California. As president, Reagan would later adopt “trickle down” incentives, lowering tax burdens for the rich in the expectation they might create jobs and not just pocket the cash.

Tempered by Newt Gingrich’s Congress, it was President Clinton’s expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit that saw a record number of millionaires created in the U.S. while reversing the growth of the deficit dramatically. CBO projections then calculated that the deficit could be fully repaid by 2009.

But after 2000, President Bush reinstated tax cuts for the rich alongside unprecedented levels of debt spending and industry deregulation. Again, income levels flat lined as work hours increased, benefits were cut and the dollar weakened. By 2008, job losses soared and the economy was in a state of disaster by any measure.

Obama’s current proposal for a direct tax credit for the creation of each new job is preferable to the “supply side” method which devastated the American middle class both times it was tried. We should all hope America’s middle class can be revitalized by a more equitable distribution of tax breaks, seeing through the ruse of trickle-down theories, and rewarding ONLY those businesses who create jobs in their communities.

But regardless of where you weigh in on today’s economic debates, you all have a chance now to be a part of the process and let the President’s Recovery Board know what YOU think. You can submit your ideas here using this web form, or direct email here.