Some salient opinions and observations, again from Charles Wheelan.
This is one of those wonderful areas where the water is fabulously murky and there are no easy answers but loads of conflicting evidence and room for discussion.
One of the current areas I'm thinking about is how it's probably foolish to construct a static set of laws and have the illusion that they are "permanent". It seems more reasonable to think of government as a dynamic process, and then to build in the necessary flexibility. Imagine, for example, a tax system that is constructed to change from year to year based on economic data, rather than the system we have now where every change requires a vote by people who may or may not be qualified. In statistics, we would say we are "deciding upon a model without fixing the free parameters".
1 comment:
Good idea. The IRS rate for gas mileage reimbursement for business miles went up this week from 50.5 cents to 58.5 which was great. But the amount you can take as a charitable contribution for volunteer miles has remained at 14 cents a mile for many years. I don't know why they can change one thing twice a year and another that can't change for many years. To me it should be the same.
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