How They Want to Pay for Paris Hilton's Tax Cut

I think it's time to start getting Republicans on the record about this cunning plan:

The drama in Washington today centers on efforts to get to the bottom of conversations, and the ultimate result of one such effort may be the indictment of one or more Bush Administration officials, which would be a big deal. But don't lose sight of something that might be of greater immediate interest to the public: the fact that President Bush's tax reform panel, which is expected to send him its recommendations by November 1, is proposing to scale back two of the nation's most popular tax breaks, for home mortgage interest and employer-paid health insurance.

The panel is proposing the rollback as a way to compensate for its also-proposed elimination of the alternative minimum tax, which is affecting more and more middle-class taxpayers every year and is in serious need of fixing. Still, as one Washington-based economic analyst points out to First Read, while this may be good policy, it won't play well in town halls. Unless these recommendations somehow go away between now and November 1, tax reform may not look so much like the savior of the GOP domestic agenda.