so i don't mean that will endanger our flag people. >> but if there is a single thing -- sorry, you wanted to jump in. .. anybody that wants. the problem is, that does

include journalists in a number of cases. the fbi, defense technology as well. that's because leaks which by definition are anything that the government is doing that it does not have the press packet about. [laughter] >> the counterintelligence threat. one of the principal missions is when you start regarding journalists, you deal with other criminal, legal, most extreme kinds of surveillance tools now available and start using that technology. although i completely agree with laws about the necessity of learning, the privacy slope. both encryption, contents and continuity. there are some journalists to

problems that cannot be solved that way. which is to say almost all the sources i've developed over the years have been people i have met, say, and iraq court a group of military folks horror at a promotion ceremony in washington. maybe that leads to of private conversation or coffee. the first conversation is all innocuous and normal. gradually you develop a relationship of trust. you start swaying closer to the line at which they're not supposed to be talking. and by then you connect to that person and it doesn't matter if you're not. that's a problem that is very hard to solve.

the very first contact was. [inaudible] , entirely anonymous. there is a terrific program, a piece of technology that is being developed called secured drop which makes it easier to make first contact with the reporter through in cryptic techniques. but they're is a lot to on that. >> it sounds like maybe we should be running some different things -- learning some different things a journalism schools these days. >> mandatory. >> encryption? >> basic technology of privacy. >> i have heard it said on the government side that we don't need to subpoenaed journalists

anymore because we know exactly who they're talking to anyway. steve think that is the state of affairs? >> i think that there is lot of attention paid to the threat posed to the privacy of the fourth amendment, ubiquitous surveillance, not that every person's every word is actively being monitored, but it is accessible to being monitored if the government so chooses. everybody, it's the capability. so there's a lot into privacy, like the behavior in a world which you cannot be certain that we are saying and doing is actually being on monitored. the implications for our freedom

and the like. there is very little attention paid to the implications of the first amendment in a similar freedom of the press which is how you engage free journalism. how you have a free press. the content question. every person who is innovating. how can journalism be done. how can attorneys investigate important legal questions on behalf of their clients without informing and then do so with the security that they are not exposed, friendly broad implications for a wide range, including the ones that they -- that americans of. i did that is really critical. encryption is vital, but encryption does not actually shield matter data.

it shields content. and anonymity tools, you can shield the net to david. it is a real threat. people like jane mayer warn that investigative journalism is coming to a standstill and the united states because of what the government has been doing. they don't need the journalists, they mean that has become necessary to do that because of the crime that it appears it has created by prosecution, threatening journalists and ubiquitous surveillance makes it almost impossible to do investigative journalism. >> edward snowden has praised russia for standing against human rights violations by the powerful. president putin has just invaded and then annexed crimea. the relationship between the united states and russia is

increasingly hostile. there is even talk, misplaced in my view, of a new cold war. how worried should we be that mr. snowden is vulnerable to the russian intelligence services in this increasingly tense situation between the two countries? >> backup of the update. there are a lot of issues. russia, latin america. the american government can't do it independently. for example, in the transit area , putin had surveillance at one point which was based on

services. what kind of tradecraft is this? the one place you can't operate. in so a lot of the other international laws in russia to criticize. it's a security threat as -- as far as the security threat, he deliberately did not bring any of the documents with him to russia for the expressed purpose of making sure that he could not be compelled to a expose them. so it was quite effective.

even under torture i can't give the rest of the information. >> just one more thing. >> yes, please. >> thank you. it's just that that one thing you referenced has been so sourced for so many people for so long now. >> it says what it says. >> i'm about to explain to you how. >> i just read it. [laughter] >> i know, but you can take it out of context and distorted meeting. he was in standing up and praise in russia. any more than the united states. it doesn't mean that their praising guantanamo and all the

other bad things. he was simply saying, in this particular case thank you for granting me asylum from persecution and for defending my human rights. but the question -- >> do you think he feels uncomfortable in russia right now? >> i'm going to let him speak for himself. i think for us as journalists, you know, it's convenient. half were right about the recounting of events. they also prevented cuba. so the benefits of the u.s. government. even pressure, to me the bigger question is why is somebody who comes forward with information that exposes something that their own courts say is illegal and unconstitutional feeling he

must flee in order to escape being threatened with several decades in prison? that, to me, is a much more sensitive question and try to figure out the details of whether he should be standing out and holding a press conference. why does he need to flee. watching a parade of whistle-blowers. >> actually, just 15 more seconds on this. people can judge for themselves what they think of snowden. baffled when people pretty much only talk about whether he is right and wrong and his personality rather than the bigger issue, which is --

>> do you worry sometimes that in your determinations to the u.s. government you are insufficiently adversarial to some other governments around the world? >> no, i don't ever worry about that. [laughter] >> i'm a citizen of the united states and i hold my own government accountable for its bad actions. i think that the reason we have the first amendment and free press is because many american journalists to criticize government. make sure the people are not abusing the power. that's my focus. >> well, i'm sitting here in the new york times building, how

nasty and of the mainstream media. glenn and you to have been pretty critical of establishment journalists. what do you have against us? >> well, and number of things. >> i know that. >> short documents. >> there's a feeling. >> people who do great work in every institution. it's very hard to justify.

i don't think it's a proud moment. great journalism there are always going to be journalists were trying to get the truth. persuaded by what is government things can and should be public. i mean, i think the nsa spying on congress and not releasing a report on torture. as u.s. citizens we should be ashamed. i don't think it is particularly radical. what i think is radical is that

we are torturing people, spying on congress or entire countries and doing all of this in secret. those things, i think, should be part of public discourse. so i don't feel -- i can't say that what we are doing as citizens, what our obligation to do if we have skill sets and can contribute to greater understanding. that's the challenge. >> more than radical, it is unconscionable. do you think as a result of the extra their work of all three of you, do you feel that the tide is turning in some way with this great post 9/11 disorientation, this abuse of power and technology? do you think the awareness is growing of what went wrong? the great power of american society, or one of its great powers is its ability

historically change, correct course. do you think that is happening? >> with the proposals and other things. >> right. i don't think that that is actually going to signal a change. i think there is the potential to shift back, but it has been a long time in one direction, further and further, you know. and so it is ashamed that guantanamo is still open . so i think -- at least i can say that i feel hopeful that there would be a corrective when the obama administration came in, but clearly that has not happened. and i do think that being confident in terms of disclosure

is a real break in adversarial press. the people have been shocked that these instances about surveillance have been made completely in secret, completely without public debate. and i think there does seem to be some kind of awakening. but i would not call it a shift in the pendulum. >> well, how do you think -- sorry, go ahead. >> i would just add in the same vein, the crucial thing that has happened here, obviously information secrecy is great power, especially when coupled with surveillance. because of this year have seen not only journalism building on itself, but all kinds of other things, light detectors for the first time in latin america

small outposts, but boutiques. you know have large facilities to demonstrate to consumers because consumers are worried about their privacy. show that they are more peculiar than others. some of the reporting, and correcting all traffic between data centers. encryption by default between its computers in our computers. it will increase or has encrypted. in the legal field you have lawsuits, the statute of the constitution which would, for example, if they could not prove

they personally were affected. now they can. there is documentary proof out there and law. we will find out which of these programs are constitutional and which cannot. you have advocacy, members of congress who happily went along with this program who are now hearing from constituents, they are changing their views. all the mechanisms of accountability, all the power that exists both in political and civil society. and then we get collectively. >> can i just add one thing? >> sure. >> i agree with all of that, but i also think that what has changed is just the way people think about all of these issues around the world. what i think is the most underappreciated part of the story is just how global it was.

people, the scandal of 2005 involved at&t, american companies and domestic calls. you start talking about the internet generally and you're talking about potential global leaks of communication. all of these countries all over the world, you know, i think that it is vulgar to domestic politics and the political discourse. so many countries around the world about how the united states is perceived, privacy in general and allowing the state to exercise great power in secrecy. when journalism shifting it a little bit, i don't think the primary change will come from legislation that the u.s. government introduces itself but very difficult and quite significant, even profound shift in how people around the world start thinking about all of these issues as a result.

>> well, maybe american invention is alive and well. we're getting toward the end of our time here. i would like to ask all three of you briefly to say, try and leave for reminded dictator to and say how how you think mr. snowden will be remembered in america . something different. how will you be recalled? >> i think in terms of how we decide to treat privacy. he will have created a sort of point. if we find ourselves in an

orwellian universe in a decade that think that everyone will look back at snowden and see that he at least give us the option to make these choices. >> plan. >> i think the most instructive example. you know, in modern times it's widely considered to be heroic. point out he is the defender of edward snowden. try and distinguish the two. but if you don't look at how he was talked about in '71 and '72 and through that decade and government and the media, even talk about it exactly in terms of edward snowden. over time he was vindicated. still appreciated, the information that he let us know about. all of that sort of died away and we realized that he engaged in credibly heroic and sell

sacrificing act that he did not need to do for the public good. unconvinced that edward snowden around the world is viewed in those terms and over the next decade even more so around the world in the united states. >> i think people understand. you only get to be a whistle-blower as long as you use of certain prescribed that this to blow a whistle. what you're talking about is actually illegal. way beyond what is illegal. the question is where it should be. draw the line as a society. so, you know, something like that. what is done is enable us to figure out.

nobody gets to maximize there interest. there's a fundamental conflict sometimes between security and accountability, between self defense and self governance. when you get to be secret as the nsa has done to my perfectly good motive of defending the country, you will use every tool available to you. by doing so in secret you are removing the possibility that the people you represent are going to be able to set your boundaries. what snowden has done is allow us collectively to make that decision. >> thank you both very much. we seem to have lost glenn greenwald at the last minute. i hope it is nothing sinister. [laughter] anyway, thank you very much. thank you, laura and glenn. [applause] >> legislation to restore jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed cleared a

final senate hurdle today. a vote on passage is set for monday. we spoke with huffington post political reporter arthur delaney has been covering debate on the measures this week. >> a headline in the huffington post, unemployment extension hits the final vote in the senate. arthur delaney as a reporter at the huffington post has been covering the senate this week command the chamber has been working on legislation to extend long-term unemployment benefits. today the senate voted to advance the bill toward final passage. some of the details in the legislation. >> this legislation would reauthorize federal unemployment insurance for people who have been unemployed long-term. those federal benefits lapsed in december. more than 2 million people have been missing out since then. >> of the vote to advance the bill, 61-35.

six republican senators joining the senate democrats and the vote. who were they and how was the senate democratic leaders able to in their support? >> well, they had their support from the get go after several months of just total standoff because the legislation actually comes with some republican priorities. it denies benefits to people who have million dollar and comes in the previous year and is also paid for, meaning its cost will not be added to the deficit. so we have known all along that democrats had enough votes to do this, but there has still been holed up with republicans insisting that we go through the full closure process. that is fine. instead of financing the bill today it will take all the way until monday. >> about how many unemployed individuals would be affected by the legislation if it becomes law? >> about 2 million unemployed claimants, and then probably another 2 million in their

families who would receive retroactive lump-sum payments if this becomes law. a lot of people are following this closely because they're missing rent, car payments, things of that nature. unfortunately for them is still seems unlikely that this is going to make it to the president's desk because the house speaker is not all that interested in it. >> tell us a bit more about that , the speaker's interest, the future there. >> well, even though this is a bipartisan bill and it needs most republican demands and even though the congressional budget office says the unemployment insurance spending this the economy and creates jobs, it does not create jobs in ways that house republicans like. so the speaker has been saying that all along. and the thinking among democrats has been, well, he does not like this now. if we can just get this through the senate maybe he will change his mind because there will be more pressure from some of his senate republican colleagues.

it is a guessing game right now. a while ago it seemed like not even the senate would do this. i was saying that their chances was going to happen. there's no chance the speaker could change his mind, even though it does seem unlikely. >> you also wrote a story about how people feel about unemployment benefits. what is that about? >> well, we are news website. we have noticed that we are getting a lot more traffic from people who have searched the term unemployment extension. and we checked coble analytics and we've found that people are searching for the terms unemployment extension and unemployment extension 2014 a lot more than they have been. interest spiked starting in january. they have been steadily rising. our tent theory is this reflects a lot of unemployed people trying to find out through the news what is going on and whether they might never be able to expect some of the checks that they have been missing.

i hear from a lot of people, and that is what they tell me. you have to search it to find out. unemployed people are doing their job search online, basically at their computers for a lot of the day. >> appreciate your time. >> thank you so much for having me. >> a panel of tax -- tax policies dollars call for a tax revolution monday at the urban institute tax policy center in washington d.c. the discussion centered on political challenges to changing the current tax code. reforms needed and the realities lawmakers face and changing tax policy. this is 90 minutes. [inaudible conversations] >> welcome to the urban institute and the urban brookings tax policy center. we are very excited about this event today. we will be talking about tax reform, which is the holy grail of tax policy.

desperately sought after, rumored sightings of the time and always elusive. there have been a lot of recent sightings of tax reform. a very ambitious plan which got people very excited for a few minutes. biden promised that after he extends the 5,000 stupid tax standards for the last time there will be tax reform and it will never happen again. president obama called the tax reform commission. president bush called the tax reform commission. we have lots of commissions. it must mean that tax reform is coming sent. [laughter] by the way, tomorrow is a powerful state. the -- i don't want to a steal the thunder of this group. these are people who actually

know exactly how we will get to tax reform. it will tell us how to get there. the moderator, who will introduce them is howard glickman, the senior fellow at the tax policy center and also the blocker and editor in chief of the text box. one other piece of affirmation, i searched holy grail before today's talk, and it has been found. it is in that basilica of san is diderot and leon, spade. tax reform is really coming. >> thank you. this is an unusual event. normally we have economists appear debating the policy merits of tax reform. today we have political scientists talking about the politics of tax reform. and it is a very challenging issue. you know, how can congress enact a complicated hard to explain initiative that has no natural constituency say for the economists that usually come to

this thing. it is one of those issues that politicians love that 30,000 feet. as long as they can talk about cutting rates and closing loopholes, tax reform has innumerable friends. once they get down to the dirty work of identifying what those loopholes are and, of course, they turn out to be immensely popular tax subsidies, the lawmakers mostly fall silent. they cannot -- there is rare exception to that. the challenges to malcolm's supporters of reform when a public consensus around an agenda they really don't want to explain. is it possible to win public support for reform? is it necessary? we will learn that little bit about the '86 act. if it is, how they do it? to answer these questions, we are pleased to have three leading political scientists who spent a good part of their careers thinking about issues like tax reform.

karlyn bowman, assistant professor of political science and public policy at the maxwell school and bill galston, senior fellow at the brookings institution government studies program. domestic policy adviser of president clinton who represented just the beginning of the alphabet here. it turns out we will go in alphabetical order. >> thank you. howard has asked if i would set the stage today by saying a few words about tax attitudes in the mid-1980s and today. first, i would like to say a little about the polls that i have watched. i think they are useful tools to understand complex public. i don't think that they should never be used to make policy, whether the issues tax reform or ukraine, college athletics. they are just too crude and to blunt the tool for that purpose publics rarely ever give specific legislative advice.

they start their deliberations about most issues with their values. there are other problems in making any kind of sweeping judgments, sweeping assertions from a limited amount public polling data that we have in the tax area overall. not only are the response rates of well-designed surveys now around 10 percent, but there, perhaps, more troubling is many of the pollsters are drafting a valuable as they have had in past years in areas such as taxes. they have become the handmaidens of the media, delving into a subject and it is a hot media story and then simply dropping it. at least half a dozen major pollsters or in the field asking questions about the irs targeting specific political groups when the news story broke since the story has faded in the news, there has been one question about the irs. now let me turn to news in 1986 about tax reform. in congressional testimony in 2011 someone at the urban

institute reminded us that when ronald reagan first test for a study on tax reform his 1984 state of the union message congress burst into laughter. gene identified a number of reasons he felt that that tax reform was successful, and he talked first about seizing today's opportunity. he mentioned that individual tax shelters were running amok at that point. pour households worth bearing heavy burdens that high tax rates. inflation was making the situation worse command the income taxes were becoming more complex. there were other factors that are not present today by war in 1986 that may have been helpful in moving the reform forward. although i don't expect public opinion to be centrally involved in tax overhaul, the public opinion climate was very different in 1986. gallup reported in march that year that the public mood was the brightest on record. compare that to the very sour move since 2008. reagan's approval rating in the spring of 1986 was 63 percent,

and his approval rating had been above 60% every month since july of 1985. congress's approval rating in the spring of 86 was 42%. its approval rating dipped below 10% in several polls last year. around 30 percent told pollsters they trusted the government and washington to do was write just about always or most of the time. in january 201415 percent gave that response. still, there is very little evidence that americans will fall -- follow the tax reform debate closely. at this senate passed a bill in july 26% told gallup that they had no opinion of the tax reform proposal. of the remainder, 38 percent were in favor and 36 percent were opposed. tax reform was not a top public priority in 1986. it is in today, which may make it easier to get the work done. for pollsters in january 2014

asked about the top priorities for the administration. the economy dropped and topped every list. the tax reform inclosing lack -- tax loopholes or tax in general did not rank in the top five in a single pull. one of the many reasons for people's disinterest and tax reform is, perhaps, their disinterest today is that when people year reform did think it means that their taxes are going to go up. even as people in the lowest income group in 1986, many of whom were probably remove from the tax holds about their federal income taxes would go up politicians' promises on tax reform simply are not credible. in many ways the public opinion climate is different from what it was in 1986. some things, the public perry on the performance of believe that no matter what happens my taxes will go up, are remarkably similar. let me make two final points about tax attitude, an unusual trend we have seen.

in 1986, most people say that their federal income taxes were too high. we have seen something quite interesting since 1986. a gallup trend that dates back to 1946. in june of 198563 percent told gallup that their taxes were too high and a third were right. we have seen a big drop in the proportion saying that federal and taxes are too high. today there is a much closer division of opinion between the two high and the about responses and a number of polls had the about right response exceed the two high response which is an enormous change since the mid-1980s. here is another trend, and this one puzzled me a great deal. since 19 -- excuse me, since 1992 every year gallup has asked people about whether upper income people and middle income people and lower income people pay too much, too little, the right amount of federal taxes.

the proportion saying that upper income people paid too little is still a majority, 61%. that is down significantly from 77% in 1982 and it has been moving steadily down. we don't have a new 2014 response on that question yet. and the proportion saying that lower income people pay too little is still very small but has risen from 2% in 1992 to 20 percent today. sadly, as i mentioned, there is only one pollster that has a solid trend on this kind of question. policy makers who want to move tax reform ahead need to be aware of what public opinion is, but i don't think it should be determinative in any way in terms of making tax policy. again, these general trend is as opposed to the kind of work that chris is doing in syracuse are not very useful to those who are thinking about tax reform overall. thank you. >> thank you very much. one of the few political

scientists in the country who is actually digging into real detail into people's attitudes towards tax preferences as well as spending. so if we can start off with them giving us a little bit of a rundown on what he has found. >> thank you. tax policy, i read words that say untouchable, wildly popular. there was one "that tax breaks are something that citizens consider that they came from the bill of rights or moses. and doing my own research, i find these portrayals of tax breaks to be confounding. in the research that i have conducted along with others, we have found that the popularity of tax breaks is wide, but not deep. and a lot of the public opinion on tax breaks is conditional,

conditional on information that citizens have, conditional on their partisanship, and conditional on their income level. so the public is not uniform in their reaction to proposals for tax breaks. and in the pathway to tax reform that i have read includes the elimination, reduction, capping of tax expenditures. so the public's attitudes and policy makers perception of the attitudes and tax breaks is important. so there has been recent evidence from speeches given by president obama and others such as the speaker of the house and even paul ryan talking about tax breaks in no way that tries to give information to citizens that might downgrade public support. so, for example, president obama has given a number of economic speeches and has even talked about tax breaks in his state of

the union addresses. and there are portions of his speeches in which he says, you know, although i support the goal of charitable contributions and home ownership, people need to understand that that tax breaks for these give tens of thousands of benefit to wealthier households and gives almost nothing to the average family. so there are attempts by members of congress and the president to inform the public about the distributive effects of tax breaks as a way to maybe diminish support. in a recent study that i conducted with chris ellis we conducted a survey experiment that tried to see if respondents were given information about the distributive benefits of tax break did it, in fact, soft in their support? and also, we wanted to just determine whether tax breaks were as wildly popular or a right given to citizens by moses as policymakers believed.

and in this simple experiment well we did is took examples and randomly assign them to four different groups and presented information on social programs. in the first two groups we used identical language, but we've framed one as a tax break and then the other as a direct government program. and in that part of the experiment we found that tax breaks were popular across groups, but they were more popular as you might expect, with conservatives and republicans in our survey. what was interesting is that in the next set of groups we gave people additional information about the distributive the effects of tax breaks. we have in our survey questions about the home mortgage interest deduction and retirement programs. we found that by giving people just a little bit of information and information that was not heavy-handed where we said, with

these programs people with larger homes will get more benefit and the program for retirement, people who pay more into their retirement programs would get back more in benefits. even including language as relatively subtle is that, we found that it downgraded people support for tax breaks. they showed lower support for those when they were informed about the distributive benefits. but they're is a catch. the catch was that when you looked at respondents by their ideology and partisanship, people who identified as independents and democrats downgraded their support for these programs. people who identified as conservatives and republicans did not. so our interpretation of the result is that this additional information on the distributive benefits matters for people who are independents and democrats and either does not matter as

much due to differences and preferences for income inequality or actually wanting people of higher income to receive more benefits out of self-interest for people who ourself identified as conservatives and republicans. so there is, we think, support for tax breaks, but that support is soft. again, conditional. some of these effects also varied by income toward. so as a way forward, giving information to voters could have an effect, but unfortunately in this partisan environment the effect is not going to be uniform. giving people information will matter for some citizens and not for others. >> god to talk to us of little bit about tax reform, but from

my slightly different perspective. >> well, thank you for inviting me to be on this panel. when he was talking in his introduction about the chairman's forthcoming move on tax standards, i have to say i was reminded of st. a gustons famous plead that his confessions. make me chased, o lord, but not yet everybody knows the offices -- obstacles to tax reform. the benefits are diffuse, the losses are concentrated, the losers tend to be powerful and extremely well-organized. and on the level of public opinion the opacity of the system, the complexity of the relationship between policy input and output leads to the kinds of fears that were being talked about.

i don't like the way it is now, but it will be even worse if it changes. on the other hand, history does record that these obstacles, which are very powerful, particularly in combination with the defaults that make up the american constitutional system which is the status quo, still from time to time most recently in 1986, these obstacles of and overcome and comprehensive tax reform must come to pass. my view is that history never repeats itself. occasionally it does run. i think it is useful to take the 86 -- successful 86 reform as a kind of analytical baseline. i just want to ask very quickly, what word the enabling conditions that made them reform possible, not inevitable, but possible? you have already been briefed in

detail about the state of public opinion. i would just venture a summary judgment, which i think is consistent with the facts should put on the table. compared to now public opinion offered a more permissive environment for tax reform than it does today. it was not way up top of the public's radar screen. on the other hand, the sentiments about government in general, taxes and particular did generate a permissive environment. i remember very clearly when house ways and means committee chair sent out his famous request. if you want tax reform. he got an avalanche of responses i doubt very much that a similar plea today would move the public kneele and all. enabling condition number two, there was a rough and ready bipartisan consensus, at least at the elite level.

you know, there are plenty of people in this room who remember the camp kasten proposal. and along with the, perhaps better known bradley gephardt proposal. the congressional budget office did a famous eye by side of those two proposals and found that they actually looked quite similar. there were not the same, but they looked quite similar. you could take a look at that side by side and see how a deal could emerge. there was also agreement on a fundamental goal or parameter. democrats and republicans, not all, but most, agreed on the perimeter of revenue neutrality. that was very important, and i can tell you, having spent some time on the hill recently, no such agreement exists today. another key factor, the alignment of key institutional

actors in the congress and in the administration, the house ways and means chair, senate finance bought atwood did not start out as a proponent of tax reform, but he got there. and that was significant. the house and senate leaders were on board to the extent -- valleys there were not telling to key committee chairs to keep their mouths shut and cease and desist. it was a very high level of interest in the treasury under two successive secretaries of the treasury. there was also a passionate and effective public advocate for tax reform. it was said of former new jersey senator bill bradley that he would attend the opening of an envelope to make the case for tax reform. you know, he was tireless. and persistent.

and last, but i think not least, presidential leaders. i went back in preparation for this little talk and reread ronald reagan's 1984 state of the union address. he was absolutely unequivocal about it, doing comprehensive tax reform. and he told and directed his secretary of the treasury to deliver a concrete proposal. of course after the november -- after the november elections. i was his issues director. i had to smile with reagan directing his treasury secretary to deliver a proposal after the election. on the other hand, i should grand to have to recall that, you know, my efforts and others were insufficient to get mondale to endorse tax reform, even in concept. but not on the 804 state of the union address, the very first major policy address that reagan

made after he was reelected was a call for tax comprehensive reform in 1984. of course, his treasury did deliver a concrete proposal and then another concrete proposal. but they were establishing a base line, creating a political space for serious conversations about tax reform. if i had more time i would go through the list and show how none of these enabling conditions is present today. you know, perhaps in the q&a we can go into greater detail, but suffice it to say that the speaker of the house famous three words, in fact one word repeated three times in response to the tax proposal spoke volumes about where the speaker said was on tax reform. we can talk about other

institutional variables. regrettably, the absence of firm and specific presidential leaders in this area. could this change? is this going to be another one no? wind know that tax reformers will tell tent? well, tune know, as all of us know, ron wyden can be a persistent and effective public advocate when he gets the bit between his teeth and nancy has a number of issues. he has something of a record on tax reform. but the midterms behind in the speaker of the house may decide it's time to legislate. of course, the president may be reluctant to hand his second -- to leave office with no significant economic policy accomplishment in a second term. one can imagine that things would look better in 2015 than they do now.

>> so follow-up little bit about the partisan differences in people's attitudes towards taxes and tax preferences. do you see this same thing in their research to you have looked at? >> one question this year from pew on tax reform as a priority, really be surprised. virtually every issue in public policy today. i think that makes reform more difficult. we certainly do see as the partisan differences in many, many areas. >> it is often said that politicians love to get out goodies. for republicans it is the tax code. for democrats it is spending. in that environment, how does one convince republicans to give

a their favorite mechanism for giving stuff away? >> well, let's go back to the very beginning, you know, the classic conundrum here is diffuse benefits and the possibility of concentrated losses and, of course, the reverse. it is easy to confer concentrated benefits which will then be defended ardently by their recipients. and what we had in 86 was a very, you know, everything i say is provisional. in no, but politically speaking there was a -- you know, there was a broad and, i think, pretty passionate group within the republican party that believed

that the key to sustained, vigorous, economic growth was significantly lower tax rates. right? that belief, that was the supply-side movement in its youth. wordsworth once wrote about the french revolution. heaven to be alive during those days, and i think there were a lot of young supply-siders who genuinely believe that they had found the missing key to this secret of economic growth, non-inflationary economic growth after rather dismal decade. and that, i think, was a substantial counterbalance to the classic micrococcus of individual members of congress and individual committees. it was just barely enough to overwhelm the perennial temptation, which you talk about and i think, you know, certainly

there is strong institutional support today, you know, for the idea of lowering rates again, certainly a major objective of camps exercise. and there is one publication, the one i happen to right for every week that bonds tirelessly for lower rates. it is the last bastion of supply-side ideology. as is the case with all theologies, it is passionately held even if imperfectly understood. >> this would be the "wall street journal," by the way. >> i did not think there was much ambiguity. [laughter] >> in your survey research, have you given people that choice? not just asking about tax preferences in isolation but would you trade these a way for lower tax rates? do you have any sense of whether there is support for that? >> no. we are putting a national survey

in the field that will do that, but i have seen questions in the past that have asked people, would you support increases in health care spending? increases in retirement spending if that meant higher taxes for you? and so one potential way of of this is if you are able to link tax increases with already popular programs that are really popular and not just popular in perception, then it seems that people are willing to let go of favored tax breaks or even see their marginal income tax be raised. you know, another point in comparison to 86 is the one thing that would make it more difficult this time is that there is a change in the composition of overall tax expenditures after 1986, which a lot of the business tax expenditures got, which left the

social tax expenditures in place for individuals. and the proportion of overall tax expenditures that the individuals for social programs rose after 86 and has continued to be close to 80%. if you consider -- and with the pressure of the interest groups and not sure if i could use the phrase low hanging fruit, but it would be more difficult if you're trying to cut individual social tax expenditures then go after the business once. >> that brings up of very interesting point. it is often forgotten that the 86 reform was revenue neutral in its totality, but if you looked at the two stovepipes of corporate and individual, it wasn't. my distinct regulation -- greg -- recollection is that corporate taxes actually went up substantially as a result of reform which was then used to subsidize more changes on the individual side that could otherwise have been achieved

under the banner of revenue neutrality. and so i suspect that some of the corporate types is smaller raft, you know, maybe on the something. it is not just a fantasy in their nostrils. ..

if it was six excess, if something is getting done and democrats or republicans are working together. that might be a good thing. the public is never going to be deeply engaged in tax reform. it just isn't going to happen or the pros and cons of the keystone xl pipeline or all these other issues. we think about these issues in terms of our values and it could be solved that way. i think it's possible even with a significant lack of public interest that something could move forward because it's the right thing to do. >> chris, let me ask you about that. but the politicians be better off trying to sell tax reform is a values issue rather than an economic issue? >> i think so. there was a recent study talking about a disconnect in that after the bush tax cuts two-thirds of americans said they supported

them even though when you ask someone in the survey they thought inequality was a problem and they wanted to have government take policies to address the inequality gaps of the puzzle was why would two-thirds say they support the bush tax cuts but then turn around five questions later and say they want the government to address growing inequality? i believe this is because taxes have not been linked with other issues that people really care about. one thing we have an idea in public opinion is there are certain issues which are tethered to people's values and beliefs and there are some positions that people take just because they are asked to take a position by a surveyor. it's really important to get into the depths of the conviction when we are talking about public opinion, about whether someone is saying they support tax reform because someone is asking the question or whether it's really tethered to an ideology.

so there is a fabulous book out recently by james stenson and chris alice about ideology in america and one of the paradoxes of public opinion is that they look at over 7000 questions since 1956 and show that a majority of americans and even a majority of self-identified conservatives and republicans say they want in the abstract lower government spending and smaller government that when asked about increased spending. so one thing that i have theorized about is that tax expenditures allow policymakers to thread this public opinion needle. if you are looking at public opinion saying we want smaller government and less government that we want you to spend money on health care, education at home that if you are able to support tax expenditures you can finance popular goals support specific groups but at the same time make rhetorical claims that

you are lowering the size of government. but if tax breaks were able to be linked to income inequality and income inequality becomes a bigger issue that could sway some people but again just to point to our research and others throwing cold water will have an effect on independents and it will have an effect on democrats. if you link tax breaks to inequality i doubt you will get the results that will sway the opinion of people who identify as conservative republicans. >> is that a values issue and if it is what is the value? >> well just for fun i went back and took a look at the speech that ronald reagan gave at the signing ceremony before the 86 tax return and his answer to that russian was that it's both in economics questions and a values question and he refused

to give one is supposed to the other. he said to individual citizens this will be good for you. this will be good for families but he also said to the country you know the spirit that made america great is the spirit that will be revived and nourished by the new incentives in tax reform for innovation and entrepreneurship, the kind of individual enterprise that built this country and he was absolutely unabashed about putting the complexities of tax reform into the great american narrative that he was so good at telling and retelling and every time he told that it was with a sense of delight as though he were saying it for the first time. so my counsel based on the master of the enterprise practice would be tax reform.

don't choose between economics and values. route the narrative of tax reform in the values that you believe in most passionately and believe that the american people either do or can be brought to embrace as the core of the problem today. no, with those values be the same as they were in 1986? not necessarily. times have changed so for example right now i think that would need very effective if it parses economically and politically to try to link tax reform to accelerated job creation. that was not what ronald reagan had to worry about in 1986 but he certainly didn't worry about it now. and similarly my impression is

that even within the republican party there are now some second thoughts about this worship of the individual entrepreneur, the job creators. a lot of republican thinkers are beginning to ask themselves what about the working stiffs? what about the people who take jobs and carry them out faithfully but don't necessarily create them? are we abandoning a whole section of the population with this rhetoric of individual entrepreneurship? and so i think also linking tax reform to the well-being and security of average families, the job takers, not the job makers would be an updated version of the values of tax reform. >> so let me play devil's advocate. we know some things about tax reform today that we didn't know

in 1986. so there has been a good bit of research that suggests whatever good tax reform did in 86 it didn't do very much for -- and if it did we couldn't find it. so with that experience can a politician with a straight face make the argument that tax reform can actually make it? >> people are pretty desperate right now. [laughter] spasm -- pessimism in the public eye is so deep and it's been there for so long since talf the -- 2008. i think they want to try things to see if they can work because the picture so pessimistic. >> eight think it's another interesting issue. given that pessimism that didn't exist in 86 like the ability of government to do something righg

to give the government the benefit of the doubt to do this amorphous thing called tax reform when they can understand what it is? >> i see to potential obstacles. one is that a lot of policies that are injured klehr related to economic growth are framed as good for economic growth so they might you must trust in the public that this is yet another policy that is being framed as good for economic growth and the other three -- health care at different times has been framed as economic health care and then one thing that is unnerving about public opinion when it comes to trust in government and even questions about do you think that you are paying your fair share is that these correlate highly with the performance of the economy. so if you look at trust in government and economic performance these correlate over

40 years. so as public opinion scholars we have to question whether, when we ask about trusting government it's tagging onto anything real other than peoples, people using the economy as a way to evaluate the performance of the government. so other people have posited that when there are high levels of trusting government that is a window of opportunity to carry out tax reform because the public is willing to allow the government to raise taxes on them but we call question to the very ability to measure trusting government because it correlates so highly with the economy and also people's perception of what they are paying in taxes. when the economy goes up people think they are paying their fair share. when the economy goes down you have more people responding that their taxes are too high so because of the correlation with the economy we again have qualms

about these questions tapping into real beliefs. >> do you share that concern? >> i'm not sure that i do but certainly there's a strong correlation. for example if you look at attitudes about virtually everything in 2,002,001 people were so positive about the environment with no real changes in the environment and they were positive out of all of searcher things that had nothing to do with the issues at hand. i still think trust is important when thinking about something like tax reform. but you have to interpret it carefully. >> bill, do you agree with this? >> well you know there are actually two questions on the table so let me address both of them. first of all i think what chris

said about the linkage between trust and performance in the economy is arguably true for the last 40 years. if you go back a decade before that which is the time when the trusting government moved functionally from the world of our fathers to the world of today, that is the early 60's to the early 70's there are the collapse in trust of government was not principally driven by the performance of the economy. so this is you know, this is a short term if i may from gods i called 40 years short-term truth but not eternal. >> if only we had tax reform in 1960 be would have solved all these problems. >> actually kennedy tried but he couldn't do it. but on the broader question i think we need to distinguish between tax reform and tax revolution.

tax reform i will call the kind of reform that leaves what is taxed more or less the way it was even though it deals with it differently. tax revolution would be the change in the mix of what is actually tax and i suspect it would make it easier for the people to understand a tax reform. let me give you an example and you know i'm not a tax professional but my gut tells me that it may be a productive proposal. right now we are taxing labor pretty heavily and we are not taxing carbon very much at all but we claim we want more jobs and less global climate change emissions. what if we flip that on its

head? some people have actually proposed a broad-based carbon tax as a replacement for the payroll tax. there are all sorts of obstacles but at least people could understand that and pending further inquiry there is an economic maxim to the effect that if you tax something less you will get more of it and what we want more of right now is jobs. i recognize the economists say corporations don't pay it and it's all in the workers etc. etc.. i think they would be net winners but that's another point. but i wonder just to bust out of the conversation altogether, we are supposing that the 86th paradigm is a roadmap for the future of tax reform. that might be true but what if it isn't? what if that was then and this is now?

>> do we know any thing about the willingness of the american people to accept something like a carbon tax? >> i'm not sure about the carbon tax although i think it's a great idea. one thing that i consider to be an overarching tension in american politics and the go towards reducing the proportion of income taxes for federal revenue is that 70% or more of the federal income tax is paid by the top 20% in the perception is that money all goes to the poor. >> if only. >> so as long as the majority of federal revenue comes from an income tax there will be a perception in the american mind that the makers and the takers takers -- talking about but that

perception is real in the public's mind. it creates restrictions on what you can do a social welfare. it creates restrictions on what you can do with taxes so i think a revolution is more than something that's incremental but possibly sell better. and to karlyn's point people may not trust if they hear tax reform they may not trust you're going to be on the winning side of whatever that is so if there's something larger that is done it would be more visible and therefore you would allow people to form real opinions on it. >> i have never seen a question in a survey research that shows supported all for increasing the gas tax. those numbers seem to be pretty hard but again we don't have

questions because the pollsters are not repeating these very often. it's interesting that tax reform ranked in the middle and not very high in terms of the four polls asked about priorities for the congress and administration. climate change always ranks as the least urgent issue at the bottom of each one of those polls. it then 21 polls it was at the very bottom. i'm always suspicious as poll questions as extractions. sometimes 84 in 2005 show general support for the idea of personal retirement accounts but when it became real in 2005 democratic opposition strong opposition from aarp and the so-called support just evaporated so i'm always suspicious. the work that chris is doing where he is testing values and differences that people have and some of these general propositions is valuable for these general abstractions.

>> there is a distinction however. i think there is a distinction and look i am unaware of any solid survey on this question either way so i'm flying blind at this point but it seems to me that if you simply ask people questions, are you in favor of an increased carbon tax you are going to get two answers. one of them is knowing the other one is no. but if you put a face for that proposal on the table what would you think about a proposal that would eliminate the tax that employers and employees now pay on their incomes up to $110,000 which covers most of the territory of earners in the country and in return they would be a quote carbon tax which by the way is a lot broader than the gas tax. if you put all of that on the

table then you might get a different answer. we don't know. >> we just don't know. >> let me ask you all a little bit about framing. doug coulter was here for an event a couple of months ago and doug was telling us he had said done some focus groups on just the words tax reform. what he discovered was people hated the phrase and it goes to a little bit what karlyn was saying before that they felt tax reform was a euphemism for we are going to raise your taxes. so i asked them what questions were what words did they like? they like to modernize. they like fairness but they didn't like reform. karlyn? >> because those are values. modernization is value and

fairness is a value and that is where people are striving so that is why they were received more positively. >> i think you would go further with fairness then you would with reform but i think that there are limits to what framing can accomplish. one thing that we don't know from public opinion research that would take a long time in doing the same experiment is even in my own work when we give people information about the distributed benefits of taxes and it changes the response and in the downgrade their support for tax breaks one thing i'm concerned about is that change ephemeral or something if we asked them a year later or six months later would still stick? it's giving people information that might change their level of support for something and then there is learning. how often does something need to be repeated by members of congress and their president for that piece of information that

is attached to the policy ideas to become learned in real and be reflected consistently in someone's opinion and that's something we just don't have a handle on. >> fairness, modernize? >> it doesn't matter what rings my bell. the question is what brings the people's wells. i would have to say since i'm in washington i associate myself with chris's skepticism about framing effects. i know there's a lot of political science that has been committed to that subject that i think, i think that it is easy for people doing the framing to overestimate the efficacy of their efforts. a lot of people want to believe that if only we tell a better story we will get a better result than sometimes that's true but often it isn't. if surveys consistently pick up skepticism about the phrase tax

reform it would ease the beginning of wisdom to stop using it politically and think of some soothing euphemism. i am surprised to hear that modernization polls better because i don't think so many americans are quite so satisfied with the results of modernization in the economy. for example technological substitution of instruments for human labor is not wildly popular but i will except the survey for what it's worth. >> let me switch gears and ask you all. i think there are interesting generic issues about legal forms of government. we have just gone through one and it being march 31 it's kind of appropriate. what did the experience of the affordable care at teach us about efforts to do tax reform?

karlyn? >> i think it's important to have bipartisan support. i don't know how deep that has to go but i think it's very important. if you look at the questions democrats and republicans seem to be on different planets about whether it's working etc. etc.. i think you need strong bipartisan support. >> what about the importance of public education? >> the accumulation of additional information about the aca hasn't really changed attitudes very much at all. daniel globe once said the public as a preliterate way of knowing. they form their opinions based on their values and journalists and social scientists change their views based on the accumulation of more information. public's don't do that because they don't have time to read about the fine print or their own experiences with the aca. they always start in terms of their values and what they talk

about with their neighbors and friends. i don't think the cumulation of additional information is going to change attitudes about the aca. what may change attitudes is if this seems to be working over period of time the public may come to believe that it's the right way to go. the public doesn't like radical change in the people who posted at the beginning thought it was radical change. that is why you don't get strong support for appeal. people are always somewhere in the middle of those issues. >> chris would have we learned from the affordable care act? >> one thing is how polarized the public has become. there's a lot of ink spilled on the polarization of congress but that is filtered down to the public. just how much things are interpreted through partisan lenses when we are looking at a survey research and seeing differences in partisanship and ideology they're just severe and stark. so people are not empty suits.

you can't just provide information think attitudes are going to change. the information is consumed but evaluated against their own ideology oftentimes coming from partisan sources so you really kind of neat and nixon in china moment for people to really believe information about policy terms. the third party needs to take a stance that would otherwise go against what a person would expect. so the polarization of the public has just created situations where you really need bipartisanship because i mean from my understanding one of the reasons that president obama didn't of grace the second he did that publicly it would alienate people who identify as conservatives and republicans to make it less like he to get live person supporting congress. you have this political environment where they may be something that's a great idea

but if you are a high-profile party member the second that you say it's a good idea you alienate 40% of the public and because you alienate them it makes it important for people to reach across the aisle and say this is something you've have an interest in your constituency has been interest to work on. so that is going to be an obstacle. [inaudible] >> the late senator moynihan was famous for many things and perhaps the best known is the most obsolete you know that everyone is entitled to his own opinion up to his own facts. that was then, this is now. in this era of mistrust the entire question of what is information, what is reliable information is subject to the same sorts of partisan tug of wars that opinions used to be so

under those circumstances i think karlyn is right that information as aging consumers of walter cronkite knew, information in the old-fashioned sense is almost defunct. i hope not permanently but almost but it doesn't follow from that. this is a little wrinkle that i would put on it. it doesn't fall from that, that if it's not information old-fashioned sense the changes people's views it must be values. i think there's a third thing and karlyn hinted at this, mainly experience. people will trust the kind of information that comes to them through their own experience whether something is working or not. and so i think the question whether the affordable care act becomes a permanent part of the american policy landscape is

entirely contingent at this point not on what anybody says. i don't think an additional word on the subject even if it's crammed with information will change a single mind. when people reflect on this two years from today what will their experience have been? that will determine what kind of issue it is in 2016 presidential election. ..

>> please identify yourself. we have a lot of people and a limited amount of time to ask questions. please don't make a speech. just ask your question and we can get to as many people as possible. let's see. let's start right up front. wait for the microphone. >> hello. i am jacqueline coolidge with the world bank. i am interested in hearing a little more about the topic of the complexity of the tax cut and how that relates respect to

fairness. on the one hand you have still most people can fill out that easy. it is not that it is necessarily so complex, but i think that they have the perception that the complexity of the tax cut is favoring, you know, a narrow group who can afford the very fancy and expensive tax lawyers and accountants, and everybody else is consequently given the short end of the stick. >> so there is a survey done that asks people informational questions to see about levels of knowledge. and about income taxes and tax breaks in general. so it did not ask about complexity, but it asked if people knew that the income tax was progressive and what the income tax was. and you had over 60 percent understanding those items. i don't know of any questions dealing with complexity, but i do believe that people

associate, if you think of the other side of the coin of complexity being tax breaks which actually add complexity to the code, people have associated tax breaks with the rich. one thing i know is that there is -- so we ask people their feelings about different groups. and the rich are not well liked by the american public. so, you know, one strategy that people have used is still in something such as tax breaks with a group that people have a certain feeling toward. so as measurements of tax breaks were the rich and people's negative feelings toward that, that is relatively consistent. that, maybe, is a window into the complexity. >> it seems that there are two issues. one is the idea that the other guy is getting a better deal than me. the other one is that taxes are just too hard to do and there are some people that have said that the turbo tax's effect is kind of eliminating that second one. it don't really know or care

what's going on. it is not that hard anymore to do your taxes. is there anything to that? >> well, you know, a lot of this is differentiated by socioeconomic class. and we ask questions about taxes, knowledge on the tax system and taxes unsurprisingly it is highly differentiated among socioeconomic class. the more money may come education you have, the more you, you know, but the right response on these. also i think that there is a different -- difference by socioeconomic class and how people do there taxes. you might have upper middle income folks who feel efficacious and get turbo tax and do it themselves in a weekend in the living room. a lot of working-class folks are going to go to stores that use steel of the country, american tax company whenever. i think the difference in how people interact with the income tax is heavily weighted.

for someone who goes in and gets a refund, you know, for the itc and pay someone from attacks from $20 might not thinks its complex. the people who are more likely to navigate the complexity of the tax code are using turbo tax are just doing it themselves. >> thank you. i am a retired new york columnist, economics correspondent. i covered taxes for several years. i have a comment, if i may, and then a question. the comments, opposition to my extreme opposition to tax reform , the opposition this concentrated, and the benefits are diffuse. i understand the first part. concentrated means that few people will get big increases in their tax liabilities. when you say diffused and i think maybe what you could say

and a lot of people will benefit from if you put it that way. one might say, well, why isn't there more support? the answer is because they will benefit, but only a little bit. >> let me ask a question. of the interesting things, the most interesting was you could not persuade walter mondale to embrace tax reform. i wonder why that was and whether his thinking sheds any light on the support nowadays. [laughter] >> let me respond. you will buy diffuse i think that was short and for ed set of attitudes and response is very similar to the ones that you actually mentioned. by diffuse i mean broad but

shallow. first of all, the benefits converge on average taxpayers. perceived as being small in relation to their total. smaller in relation to their liabilities. that is the case with these concentrated beneficiaries to stand to lose a great deal. and the second thing i meant by diffuse was weak in this sense of not very ardent. not very passionate as opposed to the passionate opposition to the ruble, something very valuable from your wallet. people tend to resist pretty powerfully. you know, i think there is something of a statute of limitations in politics. if so, you know, mine has run. so i can, you know, report without naming names that i

spent a great deal of time trying to organize a policy process. as mr. mondale's issues director . that would have led to an endorsement of tax reform, at least in principle. it is my -- i know for a fact that as this process neared what i hoped would be its and, there was a little news item in the old center column of the "wall street journal" that reported this fact. and some people who were quite important to the mondale campaign were not amused to learn about the candidates in pending endorsement of the bradley gephardt approach, and there was a certain amount of pushed back. i was called. that was that. so i don't think it is broadly eliminating about the american

public opinion. it is to my think, quite revealing about the interaction between the policy and the financial wing. i suspect that not all that much has changed. >> anything about risk aversion on the part of politicians? >> that is what they are. >> yes. >> and that may have something to do with the difficulties of tax reform. >> yes, sir. >> thank you. my name is mark gallagher, i'm of fiscal adviser to the number of foreign countries working with imf, usaid, and u.s. treasury. this has been a great presentation. i really appreciate it. i'm not going to give a speech here. i just have a question. this is a country made up of peoples from all over the world, but we just so narrowly gave in our own history the last tax reform week that meant not much of a reform, 1986, but we have

tax reform and south africa, russia, el salvador. the south african case for sure. all sorts of places where this stuff is really been done. are we another planet? does american exceptional doesn't prevent us from looking at what has happened elsewhere? i would -- not to interrupt your research programs, but is there a research program on what we can learn from tax reforms? >> have you seen any sort of research? >> i have not. >> well, i know that there are comparative studies on public opinion and values. the holding onto the idea of smaller government and less spending is something that is, at its levels, uniquely american compared to other countries.

so -- >> i do think the political systems make a difference. you know, if mr. putin decides he wants tax reform i suspect pressure will have tax reform. things are a little bit more difficult here. >> i don't think that's right. >> well, yeah. i think that from the standpoint of concentrated effective political power, the king of jordan would be happy to trade places with the president of russia, but that is a conversation for another day. i think that, you know, the thrust of your question, which i think is most operational for american purposes is the fact that we cannot conduct our tax business in total isolation from the way the rest of the world conducts its tax business. that's one of the things that is

driving an agitated discussion about corporate taxation right now. and that on two fronts -- first of all, you know coming in it is my recollection that when we did that 86 reform we leapfrogged most, if not all of the other countries of the oecd and at lower rates for corporate taxes than they did. of course the situation is now exactly reversed. people are trying to use that fact as a driver for carper reform that reduces rates. does not work very well so far, but at least they're trying. the second nexus between our code and the rest of the world that is really, really important is generated by differences and that taxation of profits. one of the big collision's right now of american tax policy which is also a partisan divide in many respects is between people who want to treat taxation of

profits earned overseas in a way that reflects the overseas great as opposed to people who want to reflect the american rate. some people believe that we have more than a trillion and a half dollars parked overseas and large measure because american corporations were submitting international operations, very reluctant to repatriate those for and profits and american ways. stay tuned. i think increasingly the linkage between the operation of our tax cut and the operation of tax cuts and other countries around the world is going to drive the discussion of the american tax system, whether it will drive change anytime soon, i can tell you. >> questions. >> yes, sir. >> it was a nice presentation. very informative. thank you very much. i am i candid of public policy program, george washington

university. as an international student who has been here for some years, i always have a benchmark to compare institutions here and developing countries. i see, i think i feel enheartened that you also have dysfunctional institutions. [laughter] and i was reading your injunction. i was thinking, they were talking in the context of countries. what institution called a constructive, the american congress came to my mind. just to mention revolution. so what type of revolution should it be? on s scale what should happen to

the american economy, people, or government that should jolted into action? >> well, very, very briefly -- and this may be, you know, the cockeyed optimist then me breaking through my pessimist show which is pretty thick. but i would not be surprised, and i will defer to experts in public opinion to mine near and far right, i would not be surprised to see the next american presidential campaign waged on the slogan of he/she can get things done. that is, i think that there is a pent-up desire in the american people to break through this endless gridlock and actually come up with an agenda that the

person who is elected president of the united states has the ability to execute. and that think the longer this goes on the more the desire for not just presidential leaders is likely to build. i think of it as a metaphor. if you think about the plate tectonics, plates locked in position. there is an enormous amount of energy generated as a tagger against each other but don't move. and then finally, something lets loose and they're is a big move all at once. i believe that sometimes, certainly in the next decade to my hopes and then not, this pent-up public desire for a clear course of action a lee executed by political leaders is going to become a dominant theme. that is why i believe that certainly on the republican side

governors with a good track record of executive accomplishment are likely to have a substantial talking point as they put themselves forward for the republican nomination because then they claim, i can get the job done, is not really a promise but also evidence evidence-based. >> that me ask each of you. i think this is an important issue. it bill is right, and let's argue under the assumption that he is, the next president is elected on at least the part of a platform that i can get things done, is tax reform the same -- the team? there's a long list, immigration , and time of reform, the budget deficit and tax. if you were a domestic policy adviser to one of those candidates would you suggest that they not only make their platform i can get things done, but i can get tax reform? >> you're talking to me?

>> i'll start with you. >> probably not. with a proviso. if the economy in 2016 looks like the economy today i would not need the tax reform. there would be a bunch of economic issues that would, had a tax reform. things look a lot better and if the next congress, which i believe is the 114th, surprises us by getting off the dime and passing immigration reform, which is not impossible, though i keep on saying we need some in congress. it is not impossible. then there might be space to move tax reform up to the frontier issues. right now no. >> you mentioned that tax reform is always kind of in the middle. same question. if you were revising a

presidential candidate would you -- >> i'm glad i'm not a political operative. that said, i think what protect reform in the top tier of issues. we are and what was called a permanent economic slowdown people desperately can be part of something to address serious and deep economic concerns. i put it in the cluster of things, serious economic weakness. i would put it before immigration in that case if it continues through 2016, if the economy continues. >> well, i think unfortunately there is a disconnect between issues people would have led to elected verses what they want to govern on. and one thing we know about large policy change is a normally occurs in the first two years of the president's term. not only in the first two years, but under the condition that their party controls congress and the public mood is in their party's favor. those things, you know, would have to usually align to get revolutionary change.

one potential ic that could create tax reform is that if you think about the overarching goals of the party, if you think about republicans wanting to lower tax rates in all different areas and the democrats wanted to build social welfare state, in one sense i think that this reflects a stalemate between the two parties. i mean, with the passage of hca, the democrats have come close to a kind of rounding out and national welfare state. the republicans, you know, have drastically to changes to marginal rates and the addition of tax expenditures to lower rates. so there is only incremental change if you take those as two of the parties. so there is a potential, i think , window for revolutionary tax change based upon the idea that how much more can you really get if your goal is to lower marginal rates to come much more can you get if your goal is to build a national welfare state?

and, you know, that might create an opportunity for the parties to say, let's do something big. >> just one more were on the subject. i am sure, you know, as a fellow political scientist you would agree with the proposition that are generalizations are true until they are. and one of the interesting things about the reagan tax reform -- of course, it was not the first two years of the first term but the first years of a second term which makes it all the more impressive. i think this is one of many respects in which our current circumstances are really driving our cells based on the past to the administration's. one could be led to the first 2- year conclusion. of course, bill clinton achieved what is arguably his biggest domestic success in his second term. so, you know, i would not -- i

think it would be really unfortunate if we can to the conclusion, you know, that sort of like waste dna, the last six years of a president's term are wasted time. i hope we can go and ourselves to a higher proportion of time than that. >> i agree. so large change, i think -- well, a large change. in those situations you gave, those were kind of compromise policies in which they were working across the aisle. so, you know, a condition i would say that could bring about tax reform is the election of a republican president, democrats control one chamber and congress , and at some point during the republican president's term the policy mood of the country turns liberal which happens. so we have to measurements of public opinion, one being individual and another being aggregate. aggregate public opinion is goes in countercyclical ways.

you think about a second term of republican president with a democratic house and public opinion changing that could provide conditions that would be right for some type of tax change. >> i'm doing the math. maybe one more question. >> so one word i have not heard in the conversation about taxes is public opinion. i hear politicians use this all the time, this irs. i was kind of wondering if changing attitudes toward the irs in the scandals, have there been major changes in attitudes? how has that affected the tax reform process? >> again, and the public domain we have had no questions. only one question since the scandal broke. and so we really don't know the answer.

attitudes were pretty negative. six major pollsters were in the field asking questions during that time. they were pretty negative overall, but they did not connected to any other issues such as tax reform that i remember or recall. >> i was just trying to doubt the saliency of feeling stores a bureaucratic agency being reflected in people's attitudes about tax reform. it is a difficult line for people to make. >> time for one more, i think. yes, sir. >> hi. my name is jane taylor. thank you for basically putting a proposal on the table. except i would make a change. does not have to just be a heck carbon tax. we have argued that there are a range of solutions based taxes because i don't think it's fair that american workers are putting money into pay for health damage to our medicare

portion of our peril taxes but polluters get off freak. >> do you have a question? >> yes. the question is, can we please refresh in the carbon taxing. i don't know if i believe in climate change, but i know i believe in health damage. they're is a reason to pay for what economists call externality. and this is one way to do it. then there's the question of how much job growth we can get. i hope that you guys will pick up on a point about looking at other countries that have done this kind of tax shift. >> is there any sort of public support for taxes to reduce pollution? they're is a big enough problem, environmental problem. >> i would say the environmental issue in the united states is different.

we want a crane, healthful environment. public dissing gauges from the means. that is where public opinion is right now, disengaged from the environmental debate in many ways. they still think it is important but i just don't see it being an issue right now of top public concern. >> any of your research tell us anything about people's attitudes about the environment and whether taxes are the solution? >> i have seen public opinion research on environmental issues again, partisanship is applied. you have some folks to ourself identified as conservatives who don't believe that human activity even contributes. if you have that attitude and, you know, you have differences also to be the one kind of related points, there was a great paper written on tax reform pathways. one thing that has been

consistent in public opinion across time is that if you make tax changes, even tax increases to popular programs, people's appetite for tax changes and even tax increases goes up. an idea about, you know, linking to funding medicare, medicaid, something that given 40 years of public opinion would -- is something that you could sell. because of the popularity of medicare and medicaid. so that is also another possibility. >> well, my impression based on scattered knowledge of the public opinion but also looking at the way politicians behave, they clearly believe that it is easier to sell the american people on the regulatory approach to the prevention that

tax based approach. all other things being equal. of course they're not, but the elision this that a regulatory approach touches on the malefactors. the reality, of course, is that it creates costs which are widely spread by less visible than in the case of a broadbased tax. it is sort of like your opening point about the difference between official expenditures on one hand as opposed to tax expenditures on the other. it is a difference between visibility and relative invisibility. and a lot of politicians faced with these practical problems choose the course of invisibility, even if it is not best. >> they're is a formula where i might disagree, looking at support. so let's look at what happened in colorado where everyone expected the support for educational reform to pass. it was overwhelmingly rejected. taxes to pay for educational

reform for pre k and k through early childhood education failed overwhelmingly. if you look at things they're going on in the state, i'm just not sure the support for target taxation is as strong as it once was. they're is a much more skeptical public. >> payroll taxes to boost job creation. that is the number one goal. >> that's right. the connection is what is so difficult to make. taxes going up and they're not sure that they like the outcome. >> we are about out of time. i want to thank all of you for attending, few words on c-span. asked me to mention that on april 15th we are having a very interesting event. a very interesting, brand new book on income inequality, not just in the u.s., but around the world will be here with dean baker and kevin has it. a very interesting discussion here on april 15th.

thank you for this very interesting discussion. thank you very much. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> i think probably the most telling statistic out there has to do with procurement of metals, specifically purple hearts. the united states may so many purple heart metals anticipating casualties in the invasion of japan that we are still giving out that same stock a purple hearts today. ..