campus and that they might waste their education as a result? [laughter] >> no. [laughter] few minutes a remaining, i would like to ask my good friend and my congressman john lewis if you would say a closing remark about the importance of an hbcus education. john? [applause] >> thank you, dr. lomax, for all your great and good work. thank you for all that you do. if it hadn't been for these colleges and universities, i wouldn't be standing here today. first one in my family to finish high school. first one in my family to go to college. pathway to the middle class, middle america.

citizens.s all if it hadn't been for these colleges and universities, we wouldn't have a civil rights movement. maybe martin luther king junior or james farmer. a julian bond. down, notnts sitting standing up. these colleges and universities bring about a nonviolent revolution, a revolution of values, i revolution of ideas. have the podium, i want to take a moment to yield to a friend of mine. >> we were just going to introduce him. >> mr. davis. is -- when it comes to

education, he is a champion. danny, thank you. you want to say a word? [applause] congressman davis of chicago. he is a native of arkansas. >> he has hbcus now. actually, two of my heroes have already spoken. there isn't much else that i would need or desire to say, except that the schools have provided and continue to provide, not only the experiences that john has had, but experiences that thousands of young people all over the

country. if there was not a morehouse, it kansas orbeen in ar a southern illinois. southern university in louisiana. or could've been all kinds of institutions. please give if you have the resources. i share with dr. lomax when he talked about education and the struggle that we had with them. i share with john all of the struggles that he has had throughout his life and the fact that he is such an inspiration to all of us. thank all of you. [applause] >> thank you all for coming today. to dr. lomax, congressman davis, and the congressman lewis.

this has been somewhat of a spontaneous ending but i think it is ending on the right note. also like to thank the national press club staff including the journalism institute and broadcast center for organizing today's lunch. if you would like to get a copy of today's program or to get more information about the national press club, please check out our website at press.org. thank you and we are adjourned. [applause] in his weekly radio address, president obama talked about his 2015 budget proposal and how it differs from the republicans. tim scott gave the republican address. he explained the act proposed to create jobs. >> hi everybody. today our economy is growing and our businesses are consistently generating new jobs.

decade-long trends are in the middle class. those at the top are doing better than ever, but too many americans are working harder than ever. that is why the budget i sent congress earlier this year is also the idea of opportunity for all. the middle class would grow and we would shrink the deficit. it is an opportunity. we would create more jobs that pay good wages. we would train americans with the skills to all those jobs. we would guarantee every child access to a great education. we would make work pay with wages you can live on, savings you can retire on, and health care that is there for you when you need it. this week, the republicans but forward a different budget. it does the opposite. it shrinks opportunity and makes it harder for americans who work

hard to get ahead. the republican budget begins by handing out massive tax cuts to households making more than $1 million per year. to keep from putting a hole in the deficit, they would have to raise taxes on middle-class families with kids. there are deep cuts to investments that would help our economy create jobs, like education and scientific research. they will not tell you where these cuts will fall exactly. in a few years, 170,000 kids would be cut from early childhood education programs. 200,000 new mothers and kids will be cut off from programs that let them get healthy food. schools throughout the country will lose funding that supports special education teachers. if they want to make smaller cuts to one of these areas, that means larger cuts in other areas. it also tries to repeal the affordable care act, even though that would take away health care for americans who have done the responsible thing and signed up to buy health insurance.

the rules that we have put in place to protect the middle class from another financial crisis would disappear. policies that benefit a few and make it harder for working americans to succeed is not what we need right now. our economy does not progress from the top down. it grows from the middle out. that is what my agenda does. that is what i will keep on fighting for. thanks and have a great weekend. >> hi, i am u.s. senator tim scott. the most important issue facing our nation today is job creation. it has been that way for the last six years. instead of tackling the cause of unemployment, too many politicians are focused only on the effect of making political points. we want to make sure that folks

can get out and they have a solid foundation on which to stand. i know the hard choices facing so many families every night. as a former small business owner, i know the importance of ensuring that the next generation of american is the most well-trained, best educated workforce the world has ever seen. there are currently 4 million open jobs in america, including 65,000 in south carolina. these are good jobs that for a variety of reasons, including a lack of trained workers, go unfilled. day after day, week after week. that is 4 million families who could sleep better at night and thousands of businesses that could become more profitable and offer more opportunities for their employees. let's confront this problem head on. an efficient system will ensure that our workforce can compete

and win in the 21st century. more resources will help those in need. we should not get caught up in the quagmire pit of red tape and regulations. instead of having 35 separate federal training programs with expensive overhead, let's simplify them into one flexible workforce fund. instead of throwing billions of dollars at these programs with no measurable result, let's give states and localities the flexibility they need to develop targeted plans to help low-income families, young folks, those with disabilities, and the unemployed, the long-term unemployed, and the undeemployed. instead of watching 4 million jobs sit empty, let's make sure that those who want to work are

learning the skills they need to succeed. i will ensure that we can do all this. my bill has passed the house of representatives under the great leadership of congressman fox. i introduced it as an amendment to the senate unemployment bill. senate democrats, for some reason, i can only imagine it is a political reason, blocked it this week. the american people deserve better than that. a modern, efficient workforce development system is essential to our future. i believe in america, and i believe that our greatest days lie ahead. we need a straightforward commonsense solution for american families and for helping get america back to work. thank you and god bless america.

next, tax experts outline possible changes to the tax code. then a senate hearing. live at 7:00 a.m., your calls and comments on washington journal. i get to know these young men and women when i go out there. i keep seeing some of them killed and agitated. i want out of there as fast as anybody else. let the afghans fight their own fight. we have to do it in a prudent way. when i talk to stay to mothers is that we cannot get of aung up on the defects

rack and the afghan politics, we have to keep a larger perspective that those who have died did not die in vain. in 2001 said to anybody at 10 years later, there would not be another attack on united date, most of you would say that i was wrong. it is because we took the war and aively to al qaeda lot of mistakes were made, but if you stand back from the particulars, we are safer today than we were in 2001. we are well on our way toward crushing al qaeda. overall, we have done a successful job with our military. veteran,m when it -- analyst and author, being last -- bing west will take your questions.

on monday, a panel of tax asked her to call for a tax revolution. the discussion centered on the current tax code and changes that are needed. institute tax policy center, this is an hour and a half. -- half -- >> welcome to the urban-brookings tax policy. we are going to be talking about tax reform which is the holy grail of tax policy. it is sought after. there are rumored sighting all

of the time. there have been recent tigsights like tom camp and ron whiten promises after extending the 5,000 stupid tax extenders for the last time there will be tax reform and it will never happen again. president obama called a tax reform commission, president bush called it. their independent tax reform commissions. we have lots of commissions which must mean tax reform is coming soon. by the way, tomorrow is april fools day. the -- i don't want to steal the thunder of this group. these people know how we will get the tax reform and they will tell us how to get there. the moderator is howard glekman who is the senior fellow and the

editor and chief of the tax blog. one other piece of information, i googled holy grail before today's talk. it has been found. it is in the leon, spain area so tax reform is coming. this is an unusual event. we normally have economist up here. today we have political scientist talking about the tax reform. it is challenge issue. it is one of those issues that politicians love at 30-thousand feet. as long as they can talk about cutting rates and closing loop holes tax reform has a number of

friends, but once they get down to the dirty work of identifying what the loop holes are the lawmakers fall silent with david camp being a rare exception. the challenge is how can we get public support for reform? is it possible? it is necessarily? we will hear about the '86 acts. we have three leading political scientist here. ka karlyn boman, bill galsto and

also leonard burman. we are going to go in alphabetical order. karlyn, want to get it started? >> i would like to say about the polls i watch at ai on many subjects. i think they are a useful tool to understand things but ankh i don't think they should be used to make decisions. public rarely gives specific legislatorive -- legislative advice. there are other problems with sweeping choices from the data.

the response rates of surveys are around 10% but more troubleling is pollsters are not upgrading the valuable trends they had. they have become the hand maidens of the media going in with it is hot and dropping it. half a dozen major pollsters were asking questions about the irs targeting the specific groups but since it faded from the news there has been one question from the irs. now let's turn to 1986 views about tax reform. gene sterling reminds us when ronald rake reagan asked for a study on tax reform congress bursted into laughter.

gene went over a number of reasons why he thought tax reform was successful. and he talked about seizing the opportunity. individual tax shelters were running a muck and the income tax system was become more complex. but there were other factors that are not present today but were in 1986 that may have been helpful in moving the reforms forward. i don't expect public opinion to be involved, but the climate was different in 1986. gallop reported the public mood was the brightest on record. compare that to the sour rate in 2008. in the spring it was 60% approval rating and congress's approval rating was 42%.

it dipped below 10% in several polls last year. 40% said they trusted the government to do what was right just about most of the time. in january 2014, 15% gave that response. there is little evidence americans were following the tax reform debate in 1986. 26% said they had no opinion of the proposals and 38% were in favor and 36% were opposed. tax reform wasn't a major thing in 1986 but is today. four pollsters asked about the priorities and economies and jobs topped the list but closing loop holes or taxes didn't rank

in the top five in any of the polls. one of the reason for the disinterest is when people hear reform they think their income will go up. even thoughs in the lowest tax groups thought their federal income tax would go up under reform. so in many ways, the public opinion climate is different from 1986, but the public's priority on reform and the belie belief that no matter what happens they will go up is similar. in 1986, most people said their federal income taxes were too high. but we have seen something

interesting since 1986. in june of 1985, 60% said their income taxes were too high. today there is a closer division of opinion between the too high and about right responses. in a number of polls the about right exceeds the normal change and that is a big change since the 1980s. here is another trend. this one puzzles me. since 1992, gallop asks people about upper income and separately middle or lower income people pay too much or right around the right amount. upper people paying too little is still the majority, 61% but it is done from 77% in 1982 and

has been moving down. we don't have the 2014 response on the question yet. and the part saying lower in come pay too little is small but 2% in 1992 to 20% today. there is only one pollster that has a solid trend on this kind of question, sadly. policy makers need to be aware of what public opinion is but i don't think it should determine the tax policy. the kind of work chris is doing will show this isn't useful to people thinking about tax reform. >> chris is one of the few political scientist in the country would see digging in detail into people's attitude on tax preference and spending.

so give us a rundown. >> when i read media counts of tax policy, i read words like n untouchable, wildly poplar and one quote that tax breaks are something that citizens came from the bill of rights or moses. and given my own research, i find these protrails of tax breaks to be confoundling. in the research i conducted, along with others, we found the popularity of tax breaks is wide, but not very deep. and a lot of the public opinion on tax breaks is conditional. conditional on information citizens have, conditional on their partsinship and income level. so the public isn't uniform in

their proposals to tax breaks. and any pathway to tax reform that i read crus the elimination and reduction ouch of cap expenditures. there has been recent evidence from speeches from obama or paul ryan or even boehner talking about tax information to citizens that might downgrade support. president obama has given a number of economic speeches and talked about tax breaks in his state of the union addresses. there are portions where he says i support the goal of home

ownership people need to understand the tax breaks gives tens of thousands of abouts to the wealthy households and nothing to the families that need it. so there are attempts to inform the public about the distribution of the tax cuts in a way for support. chris ellis and i conducted a survey experiment that tried to see if people were given the information about the tax cut break breaks did it soften their support some and we wanted to see if they were a right given by moses like they believed. we took a sample, assigned them to four different groups and presented information on social

programs. we used identical language in the fist group but one was a tax break and the other was a direct government program. we found tax breaks were poplar across groups in that experiment but they were more poplar with conserveatives and republicans in the survey as you might expect. but in the next set of groups, we gave people additional information about the distr distributive affects and we had the retirement and home mortgage programs. we found by giving them a little information that wasn't heavy p heavy-handed where we said people are larger homes get benefits and with the retirement people who pay more get more.

even including language at subtle as that we found it done do downgrad downgraded the support. there was a catch. with and when you look at the people responding by their partisanship people who were independents and democrats downgraded but the conservatives and republicans didn't. so this additional information on the distrufbdistributive mat independents and democrats, but not for the people when are

self-identified as conservatives and republicans. so there is, we think, support for tax breaks but that support is soft but again conditional. some of these effects varied by income cohert. giving information to voters could have an affect, but the effect isn't going to be uniform. and giving people information will matter for some citizens and not for others. >> bill is going to talk about tax reform. the '86 tack reform as well. but from a different perspective. >> thanks for inviting be to be on the panel. when the introduction was

happening and they were talking about the move on tax reminders. i was reminded of the make me chase, o'lord, but not yet. everybody knows the obstobsticao tax reform. the opacity of the system, the complexty of the relationship between policy input and output leads to the fears that were being discussed namely i don't know how this works but the odds are i am going to lose if the system changes. i don't like the way it is no, but i will be worst off. history records that these

obsticals that are powerful, particularly with the constitutional system, stim from time to time, most recently in 1986, tax reform has come pass. my view is that history never repeats itself but it does rhyme occasionally. so it is useful to take the successful '86 reform as an analytical baseline. i want to ask what were the enabling conditions that made that reform possible? not inevitable but possible. you were briefed in detail about the state of public opinion. and i would just venture a summary judgment, which i think it is consistent with facts on the table, compared to now,

public opinion offered a more per missive environment for tax reform today. it wasn't at the top, but the sentiments about government and taxes in general generated a per missive environment. i remember when the house ways and means committee chair sent out a famous request write rosty if you want tax reform. he got an avalanche of responses and i doubt a similar response would move the public today. enable conditions two: there was a rough and bipartisan c concensus at the elite level. there were people that remember the camp caston proposal and along with the perhaps better

known bradley gep heart proposal. the congressional budget office did a side-by-side of the proposals and they looked similar. you could look at the side-by-side and see how a deal could emerge. democrats and republicans agreed on the parameter of revenue neutrality and that was very important. i can tell you having spent 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, on the

senate finance bob didn't start out as a proopponent of tax reform but got there. there house and senate leadership were on board to the extent they were not telling key committee chairs to keep their mouth shut. and there was an interest under the treasurey with two terms of don regan and jim baker. and thrusere was a public cry f reform. bill bradley would attend the opening of an enevelope for tori tax reform. and last but not least,

presidential support. reagan was unequivocal about doing tax reform and he told and directed his secretary of treasure to deliver a concrete proposal. i was the issue director so i had to smile when reagan directed his treasurer to deliver the proposal after the election. but not only the '84 state of the union address, the first policy address reagan made after being elected again was a

proposal. they were creating a space for the serious conversation 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 and a we can go into greater detail. but john boehner's response to dave camp's tax proposal -- blah, blah, blah -- spoke where his head was on tax reform and we could talk about the other insti instituti

institutional israel values. will this change? or be another wind mill? as all of us know, ron whiten can be a public advocate that is persistance and has a record on tax reform. with the midterms behind him, speaker boehner may decide it is time to legislate and the president maybe reluctant to leave office with no significant economic policy accomplishment in his second term so one would imagine thinks look better in 2015 than now. >> i want to ask karlyn to follow-up on the people's

attitude toward tax preferance. >> the question on pew for tax reform there was no differences in the questions and that surprised me. i think that makes reform difficult. we see the deep partisan differences in many areas. >> bill, it is interesting. it is said that paul politicians love to give out goodies. for republicans it is the tax code and for democrats it is spending. in that environment, how does one convince republicans to give up their favored mechanisms for giving stuff away? >> well, let's go back to the

very beginning. the classic cunonedrum here is diffuse benefits and the possibility of concentrated losses and the reverse. it is easy to confer benefits that are concentrated benefits that will be defended by the recipients. what we had in '86, everything i say i say is provisional with sterling in the room, but pol politically spending there was a broad and passionate group within the republican party that believed the key to economic growth was significantly lower tax rates.

that belief, that was the supply side movement in its youth. wordsworth wrote about the french revolution and it was very heaven to be alive during those days. and there were people that thought they found the missing key to economic growth and non-inflation growth after a s dismyl decade. it was just barely enough to overwhelm the perennial temptation you talk about. there is strong institutional support for the idea of lower rates again. that was a major objective of

camp's exercise and there is one publication, the one i write for, that thumps the tub tirelessly for lower rates. ...

>> if you are able to rank these tax increases with the other programs, not just popular in perception, then it seems that people are willing to let go and favor tax breaks with the marginal income tax to be raised. in another comparison is 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 sector expenditures were/. which allow them for individuals and the proportion of overall taxes that go to individuals or these social programs rose and has continued to be close to

80%. so, you know, if you consider this in the pressure of the groups, i'm not sure that i would use that phrase the low hanging fruit. but it would be more difficult are trying to cut individual expenditures and going up to the business ones. >> that brings up a very interesting point and it is often forgotten that the reform was revenue neutral in its totality. but if you look at the two stovepipes of this is that corporate taxes actually went up as a result of reform and that was then used to subsidize more changes on individual side that could otherwise be achieved under revenue neutrality. and i suspect some of them who smell a rat may be onto

something and so stay tuned. >> it's an interesting issue as we are pointed to point out. so much happens on the individual by that that makes it even more important. >> the brings up the deep split between the small business people represented by the national federation of independent business and the corporate business community. their interests are not in alignment on this issue and many other issues as well. it is increasingly notional to talk to this point. >> let me ask you about this. i would like you to dig a little deeper into it. so is it even necessary to have broad-based public support for

tax reform, or is it kind of a public this assurance of disinterest? >> well, we need some victory in a slightly different way. if you look at all of the government activity, there isn't one area where people are really positive about government right now. and they really do believe the country is safer since 9/11. and that is something positive that i see. but the approval of congress in the last couple of months since the agreement in late 2013, it was actually picking up ever so slightly because the mood has been quiet. and so is there is a fix that and something is seen as getting done, that could provide so much

for them in congress and i might be a good thing. the public is never going to be engaged in tax reform. it just isn't going to happen or the pros and cons or all of these other issues. we think about these issues and i think it is possible that even let a significant lack of public interest it is something to move forward because it's the right thing to do and to be a success. >> let me ask you about that. what politicians be better off trying to sell this as the value issue or the economic issue in a you know, i think so. there was a recent study talking about a disconnect but after the bush tax cuts, two thirds of americans say that they supported them even though when you asked him on the same survey they fed it got inequality was a problem and they wanted to take policies to address the inequality gap. so why would two thirds say this

and then say that they want the government to a dress crime and inequality. so i believe this disconnect is caused because they have not linked other issues that people really care about. so one thing that we have an public opinion is that there are certain issues that are tethered to people's values and believe and there are some positions people take just because they are out to take a position by events. so it is really important to get into that depth of conviction when they are talking about public opinion and whether someone is saying that they support tax reform or whether it is tethered to this ideology. there's a fabulous book out by chris ellis about ideology in america. and one of the paradoxes of public opinion is that they look at over 7000 questions since

1956 and it shows that a majority of americans and even the majority of self identified conservatives and republicans say that they won in the abstract lower government spending, smaller government. and they sometimes want increased spending. so one thing that i want to talk about his tax expenditures allow them to thread this public opinion. so if you're looking at the public opinion in saying that you want smaller government and less government, but we want you to spend money on health care and education, if you are able to support tax expenditures that you can finance popular goals and support with the groups and at the same time make rhetorical claims about this. but the tax breaks were able to be linked to income inequality, which becomes a bigger issue that could sway some people.

so just to point toward research and also to others, it will have an affect on independents and democrats. if you link the tax breaks to inequality, i doubt given the result that it will sway the opinion of people who identify as conservatives and republicans. >> if it is, what is the value? >> well, just for fun. i went back and i took a look at the speech that ronald reagan gave at the signing ceremony for the 1986 tax return. and his answer to that question was that it is both an economics question and he refused to give one as opposed to the other. he said to individual citizens, this will be good for you and good for families. but he also sent to the country

that the spirit that made america great is the spirit that will be revived and rushed by the new incentives in the 1986 tax reform for innovation and entrepreneurship. the kind of individual enterprise that has been a part of this country. so he was unabashed with the complexities of tax reform and fitting them into the american narrative that he was so good at telling and retelling. and so every time he retold a it was as though he was saying it for the first time. so my counsel based upon this practice is do not choose between economics and values. read the narrative of tax reform is part of 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. with those values being the same as they were in 1986, not necessarily. times have changed. so for example right now i think that it would be very effective to try to link the tax reform to accelerated job creation. that is not what ronald reagan had to worry about in 1986. it was certainly had to worry about it today. and so similarly, my impression is that even within the republican party there are now some second thoughts about this warship of the individual health reserve. the job creators. a lot of them are beginning to

ask themselves what about the people who carry out jobs faithfully but don't necessarily create them. are we abandoning a whole section of the population with this rhetoric of ownership. and i think that also linking the tax reform to the wealth and security of average families, the jobseekers and not the job makers, it would be an updated version of the values of tax reform. >> okay. so let me play at devil's advocate with everyone. we know some things about tax reform that we didn't know before. >> just. >> so there has been a good deal of research that suggests whatever good tax reform dead, it didn't do very much for the overall economy.

>> just. >> so we have with that experience, can we make the argument, and they tried, can they actually make the argument that tax reform is correct. >> the pessimism is seriously so deep. it's been there for so long, since 2008. such a very high level. so i think that they want to try things to see if they can work because the picture is so pessimistic. >> so that is another interesting issue. i asked bill, given that the pessimism that existed about the ability of government to do something right. are people willing to give the government the benefit of the doubt to do this thing called tax reform when they don't understand what it means?

two i see two potential obstacles. one is that a lot of policies that are indirectly related to economic growth are framed as good for economic growth. so there could be a mistrust and the public that this is yet another policy that is being framed for economic growth and the other three, it is good for economic growth and then there are other things as well. one thing that is unnerving about public opinion when it comes to trust in government and even questions about do you think that you're paying your fair share. correlate highly 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 must question when we ask about the government, people using the

economy as a way to evaluate performance of the government. and so other people have talked about how that is a window of opportunity to carry out tax reform because the public is going to allow them to raise taxes on them. but we call into question the very ability to measure and trust in government because the correlate so well with the economy. also people's perception of when the economy goes up able think they are paying their fair share. when the economy goes down the more people are responding that their taxes are too high. so because of the correlation with the economy we again have qualms about tapping into real belief. >> are you sure you meant. >> i'm not sure that i agree. but it certainly is true that they have a strong correlation

if you look at this in 2000 and 2001. people were so positive about the environment and then it had nothing to do with the issues at hand. but i still think it's important when we think about something like tax reform. but you have to interpret at carefully. >> you agree with this? >> they're actually two questions on the table. so let me address both of them. first of all i think that what chris says about the linkage between the trust and the performance of the economy, it is arguably true for the last 40 years. but if you go back a decade before that, which is the time when the trust in government

moved functionally from the world of our fathers to the world today. that is the early 60s to the early 70s. there it was not principally driven by the performance of the economy. so this is -- this is a short-term from god side, caught 40 years from it. but not something that is eternal. >> will actually, kennedy tried to solve it. and so 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 means what it packs, more or less the way it was, even though it deals with it differently. tax revolution would be a change

in what is actually tax and i suspect it will be easier for the american people to understand a proposal for this at this point than for tax reform. so let me give you an example and i am not a tax professional. but my gut tells me that it may be a productive proposal. so 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 carbon change permissions. some have proposed it as a replacement for the payroll tax. there are all sorts of obstacles and at least people can understand that.

and pending further inquiry there is an economic maximum of you tax something less you will get more of it. and what we want more of his jobs. economists say that corporations don't really pay this all with workers and etc. so i don't think they would mind a pay increase at this point by the way. i think that they would be net winners from that, but that is another point. so just to bust out of the conversation altogether, we are supposing that the 86. time time is a roadmap to the future of tax reform. that might be true. that was then and this is now. >> do we know anything about this to accept something like a carbon tax? >> i'm not sure about it, although i think it a good idea.

one thing i consider to be an over arching tension in american politics goes towards reducing the proportion of income taxes for federal revenue is at 70% or more is used by the top 20% and the perception is that that money all goes to the poor. so as long as the majority of federal revenue comes from the income tax, there has to be a perception in the american mind that we are talking about it. but that perception is real and the public's mind. it creates restrictions on what you can do with social welfare. it creates restrictions on what you can do with taxes.

so i think that a revolution is something that is incremental and as was pointed out people might not trust if they hear the phrase tax reform. they might not trust that they are going to be on the winning side. so there is something larger than his done, it is more visible and therefore you would allow people to own real opinions on it. >> i've never seen a question that shows support just in this way. those numbers seem to be pretty hard. but we don't have a lot of this and it's interesting because it ranked in the middle but not very high and it was at the very

bottom. so i guess i'm always suspicious when some opinions change radically. and so when it became real, and not so-called support that has evaporated and i think it intensifies and that is the general obstruction. >> there is a distinction, however. there is a distinction. and i am unaware of any solid survey evidence either way. but it seems to me that if you

asked people in question, are you in favor of increased carbon tax, the other one is no and heck now. but if you put this proposal on the table, what would you think about a proposal that would eliminate the tax on employers and employees now pay on their income, up to $110,000, which covers most of the territory of earners in the country and in return they would be a carbon tax, which by the way is a lot broader. so if you put all of that on the table, then you might get a different answer. and we certainly do so now. >> let's talk about framing. we were talking about this and she was saying that we have a

lot of focus groups on just the words tax reform. and when he discovered was the people hated the phrase with what was said before, that they felt that tax reform was a euphemism for we are going to raise your taxes. so when asking what words do they like, they are like modernized, fairness, but they didn't like reform. >> modernization was part of value. i think that that is why they were more positive and some whites. >> and i think that there are limits to what framing can

accomplish. one thing we don't know from public opinion research as it would take a long time and asked thing even in my own work. so when we give people information, it changes the response and they downgraded tax breaks. one thing that i'm concerned about is that is that change ephemeral or is it something that if we asked them a year later or six months later, that would still stick. so it's giving people information that might change their level of support for something. and then there is also learning. so how often does something need to be repeated by members of congress or the president for that piece of information that is attached to the pulp the idea to become learned in real and be reflected this way. and that is something that we just don't have a handle on. >> fairness, anything to ring the bell.

>> it doesn't matter what rings my bell, but what rings the bell of the people. and i had to lay that i'm in washington, i associate myself with skepticism about the framing effects. i know there's a lot of political science that has been talked about on that subject. but i think that it is easy for people who are doing the framing to overestimate the effort to give their efforts. a lot of evil want to believe that if we tell a better story we will get a better result. sometimes that is true, but often times it is not. but it surveys consistently to pickups get the schism without the tax reform. and it would be the beginning of wisdom stopped using a politically with the euphemism. and i think that i am surprised to hear that many americans are

satisfied with the results of modernization in the economy. for example, technological substitution. i will accept it for what it's worth. >> let me switch gears and ask you all about this. there are some interesting generic issues about bigger forms of government. we had just gone through one as of march 31. what is the experience of the affordable care act with efforts to do tax. >> i think it's pretty important have bipartisan support. and i think it's very important given what we have seen. if you look at the question about whether it's working.

i think we need strong bipartisan support. >> what about people really understanding this. >> the accumulation of additional information has not really changed attitudes very much at all. the public has a kind of way of approaching the issue and they form their opinions based on their values and journalists and social scientists and people like that change their views with more information and publics don't do that because they don't have time to read about all the fine print for the experience with the aca there. it always starts in the way they talk about this with their friends. so i don't think that the accumulation of additional information will significantly change this. but what does seems to be a part of this is over it. matter of time. then the public will come to believe that it the right way to

go. and they oppose it at the beginning. and so that is why you don't get strong suit for as well. >> what did we learn from informal care act? >> one thing is how polarized the public has done. there's a lot of angst and that has filtered down to the public. so just how much things are interpreted, when we are looking at survey research, they are just severe and very start. so you can't just provide information and think that attitudes are actually going to change. the information is consumed, but then evaluated against for their own ideology, oftentimes it is coming from partisan sources. so you really can't and need

this moment for people who really believe information about policy change. they need to take a stance that would otherwise go again what a person would expect. so the polarization has just created a situation where you really need bipartisanship. because one of the reasons he didn't embrace simpson-bowles, the second he do that publicly it would alienate people who identified with republicans and they are less likely to get bipartisan support in congress. ..

>> and so under nose circumstances, i think it's right that information, as aging consumers, walter cronkite, you know, information in that

old-fashioned sense is almost defunct. i hope not permanently, but what follows that is that if it's not information in the old-fashioned sense that changes people's views, it must be values. i think there's a third thing, and we hinted at this. mainly experience; rights? people will trust the kind of information that cosmgs to them through their own experience whether something is working or not, and i think the question of whether the affordable care act is part of the permanent american policy land scape is entirely contingent on not on what anybody says about it. i don't think an additional word on the subject, even crammed with information, will change a single mind; right? when people reflect on this

years from now, what will it rethrect? that determines what issue it is in the 2016 presidential election. i share the view that what happens between now and november is unlikely to have impact, but two and a half years. >> circle back to taxes. the numbers presented to us at the beginning of the discussion suggested that people's experience with the current tax code is okay. given people's reluctancy to make the changes, how does one sell them on the change they feel may be actually not necessary. >> it's bipartisanship, certainly. >> it is bipartisanship. >> let me give you all a chance

to ask a few questions. nobody's got any, i see. first of all, wait for the microphone, second, identify yourself, and, thirdly, we have a lot of people, limited amount of time to ask questions, please, don't make a speech, just ask the question and we get to as many people as possible. let's start towards the front and wait for the microphone. >> hello, i'm jackie coolidge from the royal bank and i want to hear more about the topic how are relates perception to fairness so on the one hand, most people fill out the ez. it's not that it's so complex itself, but i think that they have the perception and small groups of people do that the

complexity of the tax code favors, you know, a narrow group with expensive tax lawyers, accountants, and everyone else is consequently getting the short end of the stick. >> we know anything about that? >> so there is a survey done that asked people informational questions to see about levels of knowledge, and about income taxes and tax breaks in general and didn't ask about complexity, but if people knew that the income tax was progressive and what it was, and it was 60% understanding those items. where i don't -- i don't know of any questions dealing with complexity, but i believe that people associate, if you think of the other side of the coin of complexity being tax breaks, which, you know, add complexity to the code, people have associated tax breaks with rich, and one thing that i know is that there's -- so we asked

people their feelings about different group, and the rich are not well liked by the american public on an american basis, and so one strategy that people use is to link something, such as tax breaks, with a group that people have a certain feeling towards, so as measurements of tax breaks for the rich and people's negative feelings towards that, that's relatively consistent. that's maybe the window into people's feelings about the complexity. >> chris, two issues about complexity. one is the idea that the other guy is getting the better deal than me, and the other one is that taxes are too hard to do, and there's some people who said the turbo tax effect has eliminated that second one that people just put the numbers in, don't really care, but it's not that hard anymore to do your taxes. despite the complexities. is there anything to that? >> well, so, you know, a lot of this is differentiated by social

economic class. we ask questions about tax, knowledge on the tax system and taxes, unsurprisingly is highly diff differentiated among class. the more education you have, the more money you have, the more you put the right response on these, and, also, i think there's a difference by socioeconomic class on how people do taxes. you might have upper middle income class that feel they do it themselves in a weekend in their living room, but, you know, a lot of working class folks go to a store; right? you see them all over the country, like, you know, american tax company, or whatever, you know, local stores that have do taxes, and the differences how people interact with the income tax is heavily weighted on socioeconomic class. those who go in, gets a refund, you know, and pays someone from a tax firm 20 bucks, they sat there for 20 minutes; right?

those who are likely to navigate the complexity use turbo tax versus doing it themselves. >> another question? yeah, right here. >> thank you. i'm edward, a retired "new york times" economics cor speedometer, covered taxes for several years, and i have a comment, if i may, and then a question for you. a comment is this. you said opposition -- explained opposition to tax reform by saying the opposition is concentrated, and i think that it means a few people get increase in their tax liabilities. when you say "diffused," i think what you could say, and a lot of people benefit, is, well, if you put it that way, well, then, isn't there more support for it? i think it's because the benefit is only a little. you might comment on that.

i have a question. of the several interesting things you said, i thought the most interesting was you couldn't persuade mondale to embrace tax reform, and i wonder why that was and whether the thinking sheds light on the part that he supports nowadays? [laughter] >> first, let me respond to your comment. you know, by my fuse, i think that was shorthand for a set of attitudes and spodgeses very similar to the ones that you mention, by diffuse, i mean, broad by shallow. in shallow in two senses. first of all, the benefits converge on average taxpayers are perceived as being small in

relation to their liabilities than is the case for the concentrated beneficiaries who stand to lose a grease deal, and second thing i meant was weak in the sense as not arian didn't, not very passionate opposed to the passionate opposition to the removal of something very valuable from your wallet. people resist pretty powerfully. you know, i think there's something of a statute of limitations in politics, and if so, you know, mine has run, and so i can, you know, i can report without naming names that i sense a great deal of time trying to organize the policies processes as mr. mondale oorks 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 nears what i hope is the end, there was a little news item in the old center column of the wail w5*8 -- "wall street journal" that reported this fact, and some people who were quite important to the mondale campaign were not mused to learn about the candidate's impending endorsement of the approach, and there was a certain amount of pushback. i was camed on the carpal tunnel, and that was that. i don't think it's broadly imlym nateing about american public opinion, it is, i think, quite revealing about the interaction between the policy and the financial wings of the presidential campaign, and i suspect that not all that much

has changed. >> any about risk aversion on the part of politicians? >> that's what they are. yes. >> and that may have something to do with the difficulty of tax reform. >> other questions? yes, sir. yep. >> nawng, i'm mark, a fiscal adviser to a number of foreign countries, working with imf, us aid and u.s. treasury. this has been a great presentation, i'm not going to make a speech here, but i have a question. this is a country made up of peoples from all over the world, but we just so narrowly gave the last tax reform, we add milt, not much of a reform, was 1986, but we had reform in south africa, russia, for sure, all places where this stuff has

really been done. are we another planet? does american exceptionalism prevent us from looking what happened elsewhere? i would -- not to interrupt, but is there a research program op what we can learn from tax revolutions that happened elsewhere? thank you. >> have you seen research on this? >> i have not. >> well, i know that there are comparative studies on public opinion and values, and that the holding on to the idea of smaller government and less spending is something that is at its level, uniquely american compared to other countries, so -- >> well, i think political systems make a difference. if mr. putin decide he wants tax reform, i spent russia has tax reform. things are more difficult here.

[laughter] >> [inaudible] >> well, yeah, i -- i think that in, you know, from the standpoint of concentrated effective political power, the king of jordan would be happy to trade places with the president of russia. that's a conversation for another day. i think that, you know, the thrust of the question which i think is most operational for american purposes is the fact we can want conduct tax business in total isolation from the way the rest of the world conducts its facts business, and 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, the -- it's my recollection when we did the 89 # 6 reform, we linked

most, if not all of the countries of the oecd and had lower rates for corporate taxes than they did. the situation now is exactly its reverse, and people are trying to use that fact as a driver for corporate reform to reduces rates. it's not workedded yet, but they are trying. the second an nexus with our coe and rest of the world is really important. it's generated by differences in the taxation of profits. one of the big collisions right now in american tax policy, a divide, in many republics, are people who want to treat taxation of profits earned overseas in a way that reflects the overseas rate opposed to people who want it to reflect the american rate, and some people believe that we have more

than a trillion and a half parked overseas in large measure because american corporations with significant internarcotic corporations are reluctant to repatriate them at american rates. stay tuned. i think an increasingly thelings between our operation and tax code and operation of tax codes of other countries around the world, is going to drive the discussion of the american tax system. whether it will drive change any time soon, i can't tell you. >> yes, sir? >> it was a nice presentation, very informative, thank you very much. i am a candidate of public policy program, george washington university. as an international student who has been here five times a year, i always have a benchmark to compare constitutions here, developing countries, and i

see -- i feel a little disheartened you have dysfunctional institutions, and -- [laughter] i was reading the gongses by admissions that talk about per specttive institutions. they were talking in the context of the developing countries, thinking what institution would qualify here, in american national congress here, came to my mind. you also mentioned revolution. [laughter] what type of revolution should be it be on a scale of mild to extreme, what should happen to the economy, the government, that jerks them in that direction? >> well, very, very briefly, and

this may be, you know, the cock-eyed optimist in me breaking through my pessimist shell, which is thick, but i would not be surprised, and i defer to experts in public opinion to the near right and far right, e would not be surprised to see the next american presidential campaign waged on the slogan of he or she can get things done. that is, i think that there is a pent up desire for the american people to breakthrough this endsless gridlock and actually come up with an agenda that the person who is legislated president of the united states has the ability do execute. i think the longer this goes on, the more the desire for leadership, not just presidential leadership, but starting there, that gets things

done is likely to build; right? i think -- i think of it as a metaphor. you know, think about the plate lock-in position, and there's an enormous amount of energy generated tugging against each other and don't move, and then something lets lose, there's there's a big move all at once. i -- i believe sometimes in certainly in the next decade, and i hope sooner than that, this pent up public desire for a clear course of action ably executed by political leadership is a dominant thing. that's why i believe that certainly on the republican side, they are likely to have a talking point, and then the climb that i get joshes done is

not merelily a promise, but evidence-based spp >> let me ask you. i think this is a really important issue. if that's right, argue and assume he is that the next president gets legislated on at least a part on a platform of, i can get things done, is tax reform the thing that they would start to get done? there's a long list. there's immigration. there's entitlement reform. there's budget deficits. there's taxes. probably others i forgot. if you were domestic policies logic to one of those candidates, would you suggest they not only make their platform, i can get thicks done, but i can get tax reform done? >> you talking to me? >> yeah. [laughter] start with you. everybody else gets to answer too. >> probably not. with a provider, if the economy

in 2016 looks like the economy today, i i would not leave tax reform. there's a bunch of other economic issues ahead of the coming tax reform. if things look belter, and 23 the next congress, which i believe the is 114th surprises us by getting off the dime and passing immigration reform, which is not impossible, but i keep on saying with each coming congress it's not impossible, and it's always impossible, so go figure, but there might be -- there might be space to move tax reform up to the frontier issues. right now, no. >> you mentioned tax reform is always kind of in the middle. same question, if you advised a presidential candidate, would you -- >> glad i'm not a political operative, but that said, i would put tax reform at the top, i mean, if we're in what was called a permanent economic slow down.

people are december prate, and can address deep economic concerns. i putt it in that cluster of things to address, serious economic weakness. i put it in the word "immigration," that is, if it continues through 2016, if the economy continues. >> i think there's a disconnect between issues people height lite to get legislated and what they want to govern on, and what we know about large policy chains is that it occurs in the first two years of the president's term, but under the condition that their party criminals congress and the public moved is in their party's favor a and so those things align to get revolutionary change. you know, one potential i see that could create tax reform, think of the overoffering goals, republicans wanting to lower tax rates and all area, and the democrats wanting to build

social welfare state, and 234 a sense, this period reflects a stalemate between the two parties. i mean, with the passage of aca, the democrats have come close to kind of rounding out a national welfare state, and through changes to marginal rates and expenditures lowered rate, and so there's only incremental changes for those -- if you take those and, you know, two of the parties, and so there is a potential, i think, a window for tax change based upon the idea that how much more can you really get if your goal is to lower marginal rate? how much more do you get if your goal is to build a national welfare state, and there's, you know, that might create an opportunity for the parties to say, let's do something big. >> just one more word on the subject. you know, i'm sure, you know, as

a fellow political scientist, you agree with the generalizations are true until they are not, and so one of the interesting things about the reagan tax reform, of course, is that it was not the first two yearings of the first term. it was the first two years the second term, making it all the more imprezzive, and i think this is one of many respects in which our current circumstances are really driving a sense of what's possible. i mean, based on the past two administrations, one is led to the first two year conclusion, but, of course, bill clinton achieved what is arguably the biggest domestic success in the second term. so i would not -- i think it would be really unfortunate if we came to the conclusion, you know, that sort of like waste dna, the last six years of a president's term are wasted time; right? i hope we can govern ourselves

in a higher proportion than that. >> you know, i agree. so large change, i think, well, large change in the party's drier direction. you know, in those situations you gave, those were compromised policies in which they were working across the aisle to get reform, and so, you know, a condition i see that could bring about tax reform is the election of a republican president, democrats control one chamber of congress, and then at some point during the republican president's term, the policy of the country turns liberal, which happens. there's two measurements of public opinion. one being individual and other aggregate, and that intends to go and counter cyclical ways to where policy's going, think about second term of the republican president with a democratic house, and public opinion changing, and that could provide positions that are right for a tax exchange. >> doing the math.

[laughter] >> one more question. eric? >> hang on, just a second. >> eric, one word i have not heard in this conversation about taxes and public opinion, i hear politicians use this all the time is "irs," and i was wounderring if clanging attitudes towards the irs and recent so-called scandals and anything like that, how -- have there been major changes in attitudes, and how has that affected the tax reform process? >> gym, in the public domain, no questions, only one since the scandal broke, and so we really don't know the answer. answers negative, answering questions during that period, and i don't know -- they were not cengted to issues like tax reform that i remember or

recall. >> i would just date the saliency, and people's attitudes in tax reforms, and there's a difficult link to meek. >> time for one more, i think. yes, sir? >> over there. >> i'm june taylor with get america working. thank you, for putting the proposal on the table other than i would make a change. it does not just have to be a carbon tax to be efficient, but there's a range of taxes because i don't think it's fair that american workers are aing in money to pay for the payroll taxes, but polluters are off free. >> do you have a question? >> yes. the question is, can we please refrain the carbon taxes as reagan's economists said, i

don't know if ill in climate change, but i know i believe in health damage, and so there is a reason to pay for what economists call extraalties, and 24 is a way to do it, and then there's the question of how much job growth we can get, and i hope that you guys pick up on the point about looking at other countries that have done this kind of tax shift, and you're from institutions that can do it. >> so, is there any sort of public support for taxes to reduce pollution? you know, ac, there's a big enough environmental problem, indeed, taxes are the solution? >> i think the environmental issue in the united states vary differently. i think once a society agrees on the ends of policy should serve, we want a clean environment, we pay money for it. disend gauges from the means or subsequent discussions, and that's where public opinion is now, disengaged from the

environmental debate in many ways. they think it's important, and -- but i just don't see it as an issue right now of top public concern. >> your research tell us anything about people's attitude, the environment, and whether taxes are solutions? >> well, i've seen public opinion research on environmental issues, and, again, you know, partisanship at play, you know, you have some folks who are self-identified conservatives who don't believe human activity contribute the to changes in climate, and so if you have that attitude, then, you know, you're going to -- you have differences also in the carbon tax. one related point, there's a great paper on path ways to tax reform, and what's been consistent in public opinion across time is that if you link tax changes, even tax increases to popular programs that people's appetite for tax changes and tacked increases go

up; right? an idea about linking a vat to funding medicare, medicaid, is something that, you know, given 40 years of public opinion would -- is something that you could sell because of the popularity of medicare and medicaid, so that's also another possibility. >> my impression based orphan on scattered knowledge of the public opinion, but looking at the way politicians behave, they clearly believe that is it is easier to sell the american people on a regulatory approach through the taxpayer approach. all things equal, of course, they are not equal, but the illusion is that a regulatory approach touches only the

malefactors, but the reality is, of course, it creates facts that are widely spread, but less viz l in the broad base tax. it's like an opening point between the official extendtures on one hand o opposed to the other. it's a difference among other things among visibility and relative inviz the, and a lot of politicians face practice call problems, choose the course of inviz the even if it's third best. >> i think this is one area where it's support for targeted tax in time for good things. look add what happened in colorado where everyone departmented support for educational reform to pass, and it was overwhelmingly rejected, pay for educational reform, pre-k, and early childhood education failedded overwhelmingly. look what's going on in the state. i'm just not sure this supports the taxation or as good as

things once was. you have a skeptical public. >> the idea is payroll taxes to boost job creation. people say -- >> that's right. certainly, the section is what's difficult to make, and the public's worried because they see taxes going up, and they don't know that they like the outcome spp >> okay, we are about out of time. i thank all of you for attending, our viewers on c-span, and i was asked to mention on april 15th, there's an interesting event to talk about income inequality on a very interesting brand new book on income inequality, not just in the u.s., but around the world. we'll be here with dean baker and kevin and lance for what will be a very interesting discussion. that'll be here on appraisal 15th. thank you to karlyn bowman and everyone for this very interesting discussion. thank you very much. [applause]

>> so, each region around the country is different. in the 1990's we did the first

assessment of scientific report of impacts around united states. we divided the united states into 20 different regions. we had workshops in those regions and we had to think about what the most important issues were. it turns out the one that was common among all of them was water. what is going to happen to water resources c echo we talked about what was going to happen to water in the pacific northwest where it is very wet, or down in texas along the rio grande basin where it is very dry. in the dry area you will be concerned about getting enough water and in the wet area you would be worried about snow or downpours and flooding. >> obviously, this is a global problem. it first started out as if we do something in maryland or in the united states, that is one