How It All Began

Because Charles Foster Kane's new book, Pale Rider, is out lots of people are discussing this section of the tax code:

For purposes of Paragraph (3), an organization described in Paragraph (2) shall be deemed to include an organization described in Section 501(c) (4), (5), or (6) which would be described in Paragraph (2) if it were an organization described in Section 509(a)(3).

According to a denizen of the NYT, Reagan's reading of that bit of non-communicative text

helped win passage of the bipartisan Tax Reform Act of 1986, which lowered marginal tax rates and eliminated many tax shelters.

See what he did there? Reagan found a solution to a problem that had nothing to do with one another. It doesn't follow from evidence that parts of our tax code are incoherent  that we must lower marginal tax rates. Simplifying our tax code by forcing regulators to write in short declarative sentences is the solution to the problem.

Unfortunately, since Reagan tax reduction has become the universal solution to all problems and non-problems. And, much like his destruction of the PATCO, history shows that he was wrong.