The No-Brainer awards
This column is usually about the Big Issues. Health-care reform. The deficit. The debt ceiling. The grand, Ragnarok-level clashes (yes I just saw ‘Thor’) between the two parties.
But not today. Today, I want to introduce the No-Brainer Awards: a roll call honoring some of the best legislative ideas you won’t see leading the evening news. These thoughtful bills and responsible reforms aren’t polarizing or sweeping, which you’d think would make it easier for them to pass. But for many of them, the absence of partisan passion means they never make it to the front of the congressional agenda. So let’s give them a push.
The taxpayer receipt: When I buy groceries, I get a receipt. When I buy a chair whose name I can’t pronounce from Ikea, I get a receipt. But once a year, I send a whole heap of money to the federal government and I get . . . nothing. But it would be trivial for Treasury to provide me with an itemized receipt showing how my money was spent. Then, for good or for bad, I’d know.
The White House created an online tool where you can enter your income and tax payments and see what your receipt would look like (make your own at www.whitehouse.gov/taxreceipt), but there are bipartisan bills in both the House and the Senate to go even further and have Treasury send all taxpayers the receipt they deserve.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/the-no-brainer-awards/2011/05/09/AFK41qgG_blog.html#pagebreak
But not today. Today, I want to introduce the No-Brainer Awards: a roll call honoring some of the best legislative ideas you won’t see leading the evening news. These thoughtful bills and responsible reforms aren’t polarizing or sweeping, which you’d think would make it easier for them to pass. But for many of them, the absence of partisan passion means they never make it to the front of the congressional agenda. So let’s give them a push.
The taxpayer receipt: When I buy groceries, I get a receipt. When I buy a chair whose name I can’t pronounce from Ikea, I get a receipt. But once a year, I send a whole heap of money to the federal government and I get . . . nothing. But it would be trivial for Treasury to provide me with an itemized receipt showing how my money was spent. Then, for good or for bad, I’d know.
The White House created an online tool where you can enter your income and tax payments and see what your receipt would look like (make your own at www.whitehouse.gov/taxreceipt), but there are bipartisan bills in both the House and the Senate to go even further and have Treasury send all taxpayers the receipt they deserve.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/the-no-brainer-awards/2011/05/09/AFK41qgG_blog.html#pagebreak
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