Widespread state sales taxation of business purchases results in significant economic inefficiency, so reduction in the taxation of business purchases should be a high priority in efforts to improve state and local tax systems.

The United States has not cut its corporate tax rates since 1993 and has been left behind while the rest of the developed world races to cut rates and attract investment. To promote economic growth, help workers and increase revenues, we need an "effective" tax reform sooner rather than later.

The time may finally have come for the elimination of income tax and the adoption of a consumption tax.

The co-chairmen of President Obama's fiscal commission, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, have shown that the welfare-state entitlements designated in America's tax code weaken both the efficiency and fairness of the tax system.

Base broadening must be approached with caution because some base-broadening measures make the tax system less neutral, impeding economic efficiency. Also, income tax base broadening cannot eliminate, and may even reinforce, the income tax's central flaw--its penalty on saving.

Alan D. Viard discusses the complications posed by the needless complexity of tax incentives, income-based phase-outs, and the alternative minimum tax.

To fund the Democrats' promised programs, we would need to have one of the highest marginal income tax rates in the developed world.

The exemption of groceries serves the essential purpose of easing the fiscal burden on those with limited economic means. Economic analysis suggests, however, that this policy is not a desirable way to advance that purpose.