Chip Taylor

The use and abuse of presidential commissions

Commissions Are Fine, but Rarely What Changes the Light Bulb

WASHINGTON — It used to be said that the reports of presidential commissions sat on shelves and gathered dust. The Internet made such shelves obsolete, but only the repository has changed.

After President Bush's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform, having spent nine months and at least $1.5 million, submits its final report on Tuesday, a well-practiced routine will be followed. The president will thank the commission members for their diligence. The members will call a news conference to toast their collegial experience. Lobbyists and others with a particular interest in tax policy will weigh in. Articles will be written for a day or two.

And then, absent bookshelves, the report will be consigned forevermore to an obscure Web site that hardly anyone will ever visit.

The panel's recommendations may amount to good tax policy. But it is hard to imagine that the president or Congress will embrace recommendations to limit the deductions on home mortgages and charitable donations, eliminate those for state and local income and property taxes, restrict the amount of employer-paid health insurance that workers can exclude and shift the income tax burden from investment income toward income from wages and salaries.

"We've got to make bold recommendations without regard to politics," said the panel's vice chairman, John B. Breaux, the former Democratic senator from Louisiana.

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Maybe the best that can be hoped for is that bold recommendations eventually move the goalposts of what is politically feasible.