A reform oriented ruling class will seek reform is the areas they understand best and the areas that offer the quickest return. Governance has always been about picking the low hanging fruit. In a democratic system, long term planning is impossible, which is not the terrible thing many claims. More than a few disasters have been the result of grandiose plans cooked up by megalomaniacs looking for a legacy. There is something to say for muddling through the problems that are presented, in order of urgency.

The most obvious place the political class can be effective is in tax policy. In present day America, tax policy no longer serves the needs of the political class and is a source of mischief that is one cause of the public unrest. The point of taxes is to fund government, but the modern welfare state is funded by credit money, created via the banking system. How long this can go on is open to debate, but if there is ever going to be a return to sound fiscal policy in the United States, the tax system will need a complete overhaul.

Even if Congress wanted to fully fund spending, the present system prevents it. The acres of loopholes, exceptions and vague contradictions make tax avoidance too easy for the people with money. Washington faces the same problem Julian faced when taking command Gaul after defeating the Alamanni in 357. Raising taxes just meant more bribery by the rich to avoid paying any tax. The answer was lowering taxes in exchange for increased compliance.

It is not just the complexity of the code that is a problem. It is the underlying philosophy of who gets taxed and how that needs to be administered. Returning to Rome, a problem in late antiquity was that wealthy landowners not only avoided taxes, but they also avoided military service. They also shielded their workers from service. There was a chronic shortage of military age men. The result was a version of the tragedy of the commons. The people benefiting from empire contributed little to maintain it.

Today, large global enterprise pays little in tax, but gain enormously from Federal policy. Smaller businesses, on the other hand, have huge tax and regulatory burdens, getting little but trouble from the Federal state. Small business, of course, always sees government as an obstacle, because they have zero influence over legislators. Compounding the problem is that business taxes are ultimately passed onto employees and customers through reduced wages and higher prices.

A reform that would solve a few problems for the political class, as well as position the economy for the modern age, is to eliminate business taxes entirely. For starters it would re-shore about a trillion in assets squirreled away in tax havens. Companies like Apple spend a lot of time hiding money around the world to avoid US taxes. It would also encourage global corporations to headquarter in the US.

Corporate income taxes are about 11% of federal tax receipts so eliminating this tax is not insignificant. Some of it would come back through increases in other taxes as business activity ticks up due to the new tax status. The rest should be raised through increases in personal taxes on the rich. There is simply no reason for special tax treatment of capital gains, for example, other than as a sop to the wealthy. Government is about protecting the assets of the rich. They should be paying the bulk of the cost.

An overhaul of the tax code like this, with flattening of personal taxes in general, would be an easy sell to the public. On the one hand, it would be an instant boost to the economy. On the other hand, it would address the growing sense that the super-rich are out of control. No one will lose any sleep over the government taxing the billionaires. The amount of money involved to off-set the elimination of corporate income taxes is not so much that a “tax the rich” campaign would set of rich flight.

Finally, the elimination of corporate taxes means the end of charitable deductions and not-for-profit tax rackets. Washington is now ringed by 501(c)(3) operations that are just lobbying and public relations organs for the rich and various business interests. Eliminating the tax provisions will not make them go away, but it will eliminate the incentives to create them. These think tanks are a shadow government hobbling Congress, the regulatory agencies and damaging the normal functioning of the mass media.

None of this will do much to address public finances or the corruption of government, but it begins the process. It also offers the biggest bang for the effort. Overhauling the welfare state is a growing necessity but doing that is impossible in the present environment. With near zero trust in government and both parties in a state of disarray, passing difficult reform is impossible. Going for the low hanging fruit is an obvious first step.

As a final note, this is why a guy like Trump in the White House could be a boon to the political class if they decide to go down the reform road. Trump is not ideologically tied to any form of tax reform. He would be a good pitchman for whatever tax overhaul package comes out of Washington. He is already signaled his willingness to tax the financial class. He is the perfect guy to provide cover for genuine tax reform.