Intense debate continues over the appropriate level of marginal income tax rates, particularly as policymakers consider whether to extend part or all of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, which are currently scheduled to expire at the end of 2012.

The Obama and Ryan plans have one striking similarity, as neither specifies which tax preferences will be curtailed or eliminated. Each plan will face hard choices when it comes time to spell out the details. Significant base broadening cannot be achieved by eliminating unpopular loopholes.

The conventional ways of cataloguing and reporting health spending significantly understate the government share of health spending.

Economic analysis provides partial, but not complete, support for proposals to broaden the corporate tax base and lower the statutory tax rate.

Capping an individual's benefit from tax expenditures at 2 percent of adjusted gross income would reduce the federal deficit in 2011 by 1.7 percent, or one-third of the total deficit.

Taxing health insurance without addressing the problems of third-party payment schemes within the current system will get us nowhere.

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.

Obama could simultaneously lower health costs and extend coverage to millions of uninsured Americans by reforming the tax treatment of health insurance.