International Business Times: Tax Code To Direct $2 Trillion To Programs That Disproportionately Benefit The Rich And Corporations

“Most of the big tax expenditures have an incredibly corrosive effect on tax fairness and would never pass muster if they were funded as direct-spending programs rather than tax breaks,” said Matt Gardner, executive director of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a Washington-based group that has pushed to end some tax expenditures. “If any federal government entity proposed a $72 billion housing subsidy that reserved almost half its benefits for those earning over $200,000 a year, they’d be rightly laughed out of town. But when it’s done through the tax code, policymakers can go years or even decades at a time without even having to defend the effectiveness of this spending. It’s a pernicious double standard.”

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