Watch Your Wallets: Republicans Talking Tax "Reform"

There is only one thing you need to know, tax "reform" is code for higher taxes. The only real changes that need to made to the tax codes are cuts right from where taxes are now.

This is not good (via Politico---my highlight):

House Republican leaders will launch an aggressive behind-the-scenes push this week to set up the first rewrite of the Tax Code in more than 25 years.

Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp — staring down the last year and a half of holding the powerful gavel — is planning to step up briefings with small groups of rank-and-file lawmakers beginning Thursday to explain the discussion draft bills his staff has produced to rewrite tax laws for small businesses, Wall Street and international corporations. Part of the so-called listening sessions will give Camp a chance to hear more feedback from House Republicans about the legislation and explain how tax reform will come together.

In these sessions, the Michigan Republican will also present new polling he commissioned that shows a healthy public appetite for the kind of overhaul of the Tax Code Republicans are working toward
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Camp will be joined in these briefings by Chief Deputy Whip Peter Roskam of Illinois, who sits on the Ways and Means Committee, and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy of California.

In addition to the larger briefings, which will be held in McCarthy’s Capitol office, Camp has been meeting privately with every freshman Republican lawmaker to discuss rewriting the code.

The timing is fortuitous but coincidental. Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), with whom Camp has a good relationship, announced his retirement Tuesday, saying he’ll spend a good part of the next year and a half continuing “to work on simplifying and improving the Tax Code.”


The two chairmen spoke Tuesday afternoon.
For much of the year, the winds have been blowing against a large-scale overhaul of the Tax Code. Congressional leaders wanted to include it in a fiscal cliff deal, but a large-scale deficit agreement fell by the wayside.

The political dynamics seem to have shifted: A retiring senator who is accustomed to bucking his own party and a term-limited Camp could finally engender the political climate needed to tear up a Tax Code that both parties think is littered with pricey giveaways to corporate constituencies and individuals alike.