Closing "loopholes" is just another way of saying "increase taxes."
For example, as I noted yesterday, the home mortgage deduction is a "loophole." Is there ANY doubt that if you "close" that particular "loophole" you will be raising the taxes on LOTS of home owners?
Well they are proposing closing the loopholes and balancing it with cuts to other areas. And I'm sure there are loopholes that are not necessary.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KatxaaIXuE&feature=youtube_gdata_player]YouTube - ‪Sen Barrasso & Cantor on debt and tax loopholes‬‏[/ame]
Closing loopholes is (imho) easy cheap talk.
Why are there "loopholes" in the first place? The answer is found within that mountainous miasma we call the Tax Code.
Let's ******* short circuit this entire damn thing.
Get rid of the income tax entirely in favor of a national FAIR Tax or Sales Tax.
But until we do that (and it will be a long time coming and may require an Amendment to the Constitution), to speak of closing loopholes is to speak of raising taxes. And set-offs to that are a waste of time. IF they did it perfectly, closing one "loophole" which in effect then raises a tax is pointless if it is set-off by getting rid of some other tax. Why spend time netting zero?
No.
There is no need to tinker with how much we pay. The need is to cut spending massively and as fast as possible.