Gramm-Rudman was an historic attempt to apply rules of self-restraint to the fiscal process. This paper analyzes the logic of the Gramm-Rudman approach from economic, legal, and budgetary perspectives. Although the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the law was unconstitutional, Gramm-Rudman did aid...

This paper presents an extended argument that the public’s feelings towards the property tax are based on an underlying legitimate concern over the fairness of market value taxation. While other factors may certainly operate, both the public opinion polls and taxpayer actions can be partially...

Can a simplified United States tax system act as an effective deterrent to individual income tax evasion? Deterrence is usually sought through alternative methods that create fear, for example, increasing the probability of an audit. In contrast, this paper analyzes whether a simple tax system...

Relates the large amount of available literature to two important issues currently on the tax policy agenda: proposed increases in marginal tax rates for upper-income taxpayers and the taxation of employer-provided health insurance.

The United States has traditionally financed elementary and secondary education through property taxation. In the past two decades, litigation in many states has triggered educational reform movements designed to reduce the inequalities in educational expenditures across districts inherent in a...

This paper develops an intertemporal model of the current account that allows for variable interest rates and exchange rates. These additional variables are channels through which external shocks may influence the domestic current account. We test the restrictions imposed by the theory, using...