Some advice for the new president from economist John Cochrane in the Wall Street Journal, Don’t Believe the Economic Pessimists:

The ideal tax system raises revenue for the government while distorting economic decisions as little as possible. A pure tax on consumption, with no corporate, income, estate, or other taxes is pretty close to that ideal.

The U.S. tax system is the opposite: By exempting lots of income, the government raises relatively little money. Yet an extra dollar is heavily taxed, greatly lowering incentives and encouraging people to find or create exemptions. This massive complexity and obscurity undermine faith in the system.

Progressives, ponder this: With a sales tax of only 25%, the government would likely have gotten a lot more money from Donald Trump—who has employed complex but legal tax-avoidance schemes—than it did by purporting to tax income at high rates.

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