This being income tax day, Congress is once again chorusing complaints about the burdens, complexities and, by Republican accounting, excessive rates of the system it created.
Details are to come.
So the 1999 debate will be about how much to cut, and for whom, without the push for a simplifying overhaul the Republicans had said was coming. At the top of the GOP list now is an end to the marriage tax penalty, which causes about 21 million couples to pay more on their joint income than they would if they were single. Proposals to do that are geared to income, meaning new instructions and tax forms. Clinton wants targeted tax breaks for child care, senior care, education and more. All those changes for specific purposes and groups would add to the more than 2.8 million words in the tax code, triple the Bible, the complexity critics note.