Rice University public finance and tax expert available to comment on President Obama’s call for Bush-era tax cuts

Jeff Falk
713-348-6775
jfalk@rice.edu 

Rice University public finance and tax expert available to comment on President Obama’s call for Bush-era tax cuts
Diamond: Extending the cuts offers a small short-term demand stimulus at best 

HOUSTON — (July 9, 2012) — John Diamond, a fellow in public finance at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, is available to comment on President Barack Obama’s call today for Congress to pass a one-year extension of the Bush-era tax cuts for people earning less than $250,000 a year.

“Extending the tax cuts only for those making under $250,000 would offer a small short-term demand stimulus at best, but would reduce gross domestic product growth in the medium and long term,” Diamond said. “Moving to a narrow-base, high-rate tax system with higher rates falling on capital income is at odds with creating an efficient tax system, such as the proposal offered by the president’s fiscal commission.”

More on Diamond:

Diamond is also an adjunct professor of economics at Rice University and CEO of Tax Policy Advisers LLC. His research interests are federal tax and expenditure policy, state and local public finance, and the construction and simulation of computable general equilibrium models. His current research focuses on the economic effects of corporate tax reform, the economic and distributional effects of fundamental tax reform, individual portfolio allocation in the 2000s and various other tax policy issues. He is co-editor of “Fundamental Tax Reform: Issues, Choices and Implications” (The MIT Press, 2008).

Diamond is the forum editor for the National Tax Journal and has served on the Joint Committee on Taxation, United States Congress (2000-2004). He has also served as a consultant on the efficacy of structural adjustment programs to the World Bank. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Rice University in 2000.

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