Could the Republican tax plan lead to bipartisan results?

That is the topic of my latest Bloomberg column, here is one bit:

If the bill succeeds in limiting these deductions, a logic is set in motion for future tax reforms. Let’s say the Republicans eliminate tax deductions for new mortgages above $500,000. That would become a sign that the homeowner and real-estate lobbies are not as strong as we might have thought. The next time tax reform comes around, legislators will consider lowering the value of the deduction further yet. After all, the anti-deduction forces won before and, in the new battle, those who expect to have future mortgages above $500,000 don’t have a stake anymore.

In other words, any squeezed deduction will remain a vulnerable target for more squeezing, or even elimination, over successive reforms.

And then:

The exact treatment in the House plan seems to be in flux, but the top rates from President Barack Obama’s tax reform are likely to stick in some manner. There even seems to be a rateof 45.6 percent on some earners, in the range of $1.2 million to $1.6 million a year. That is a far cry from Jeb Bush’s call in the Republican presidential primaries for a 28 percent top marginal rate, in the tradition of President Ronald Reagan. Some well-off Californians could possibly face a total marginal rate, all taxes considered, of over 62 percent.

You will recall that the Republican Party had in the past pressed strongly for reductions in the capital-gains rates, but that isn’t on the agenda now. Take that as a sign that Obama’s boost to those rates will stick.

If you solve for the equilibrium over time, maybe maybe you will get:

If we look at the Republican plan as a whole, it appears to be a recipe for a future tax code with many fewer deductions, lower corporate rates, higher income tax rates for the wealthy and a continuing inheritance tax. I’m not saying that the exact mix will or should make everyone perfectly happy, but is this not what a bipartisan tax reform compromise might look like?

My fear, of course, is that those deductions will not survive the next stage of the process.  Stay tuned…

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