The concept of reforming the government's revenue system holds special appeal to anyone who believes in governmental activism - it takes a place of prominence alongside economic health and social welfare as areas of endeavor where the government can directly affect the public's lives. Yet even opponents of governmental activism embrace the need for revenue reform: for those who believe that the government should do less with less, making the revenue system as efficient as possible is a necessary adjunct.
The given thesis of this paper is to assume that one has been elected President of the United States with the backing of a secure and loyal political party holding two-thirds majorities in both houses of Congress. This is the politician's equivalent of the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow - far-off, unreachable, but nevertheless dreamed longingly for - howsoever, taking this as our basic situation, the next part of the given thesis holds that our empowered President was elected on a platform dedicated to reforming the governmental revenue system and revitalizing state and local governments: our mythical President's stated belief is that inadequate revenue has been a significant element in the decline of state and local government services. We will develop our President's revenue reform polity from there.
Dismissing at once the obvious temptation to ignore the President's stated revenue beliefs because they were uttered in the heat of campaign battle and hold no place in the realpolitik of re-election (one must think of four years off early, after all), certain basic political/economic philosophies must be added in to the equation in order to flesh-out our President's character. Does he believe in a strong federal government, or is he states' rights-oriented? (Most ex-Governors who directly enter the Presidency tend to favor the states, knowing as they do how wisely they could have handled matters if only Washington ha...