Clean up as you cook.

• Author: Glastris, Paul
• Position: Tax reform - Editorial

Every generation, official Washington suddenly notices that the tax code has become unfathomably complex and loophole ridden and therefore needs to be simplified for the sake of fairness and economic efficiency. Major tax reform legislation passed in 1954, 1969, and 1986, and we're due for another round. Indeed, there seems to be enough genuine interest on both sides of the aisle that tax reform may be one of the few legislative projects that get done in the next two years.

But before we launch into yet another bout of tax reform, it's worth asking a question: Why do we let the tax system get so cluttered in the first place? Obviously, elected officials love to use the tax code to reward interest groups and make social policy, and no power on earth could--or, really, should--keep them from doing that. But just as smart cooks learn to clean up as they go, shouldn't it be possible for politicians to exercise a little discipline as they legislate, so that the tax code doesn't become a complete mess and then require a vast emergency scouring?

I think it is possible, and to understand how, consider the drama that played out during the lame-duck session late last year. As you'll recall, that extremely productive period was kicked off by a compromise between the White House and congressional Republicans to extend the Bushera tax cuts for two years. Not everyone loved the deal. Liberals wanted the tax cuts for the wealthy to end. Budget hawks would have preferred that all the tax cuts disappeared. But the truth is that there would have been no compromise at all were it not for the fact that the Bush tax cuts had a peculiar attribute: an expiration date. Because the Republican Congress had passed them in 200l as a budget reconciliation measure (in order to circumvent the normal need for sixty votes), the rate cuts were due to "sunset" in January 2011 absent a congressional vote to keep them going. And that gave the president leverage to demand concessions in return for supporting the upper-income rate extensions. He won payroll tax breaks and other short-term measures to stimulate the economy, plus a new sunset requirement that will provide him and the Democrats the chance to kill the tax cuts for the rich in late 2012.

The vast majority of provisions in the tax code do not operate this way. Once passed, the various deductions, credits, exclusions, deferrals, and assorted other...