Today's Editors' Choice

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Opinion in Brief

Ed Feulner: "U.S. tax rates, simply put, are too high. Combined marginal rates for some individuals and capital investments can exceed 50 percent, tax experts Romina Boccia and Adam Michel note in a recent paper. Our business tax system is particularly bad. American corporations face one of the highest tax rates in the world. They also must grapple with one of the worst systems for business deductions of investment expenses. Some Americans may hear that and think, well, big deal. Those big companies can afford it. And how does it really affect me? Very directly: 70 percent of all business taxes end up being paid by workers through lower wages. ... We need, as the saying goes, a tax system that looks like it was designed on purpose. One that is as transparent and simple as possible. That is why I and other conservatives have often urged the adoption of a flat tax, which would enable Americans to figure out exactly what they owe in minutes and with confidence. ... Yet some lawmakers object to major tax reform. They recoil at the very thought of tax cuts. They insist we can't afford it — that cuts would have to be 'paid for' by finding new revenue streams for our deficit-laden federal government. Wrong. Deficits are the result of a spending problem, not a revenue problem."