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Debt talks turn to tax reform - David Rogers - POLITICO.com

With White House debt talks due to resume Sunday, the next few days will sorely test the mettle of President Barack Obama and Speaker John Boehner as they try to finalize a landmark budget and tax reform deal, held prisoner thus far by the rhetoric of both parties.

The two men have set their sights on an estimated $4 trillion 10-year deficit reduction package that demands big spending cuts but ultimately represents a huge bet on putting in place sweeping tax reforms by early next year. Obama would be able to make permanent the lower-income tax rates established in the Bush era, while Boehner gets a commitment to broad reform — covering personal and corporate taxes — with the goal of lowering rates by establishing a more efficient code.

Nothing is yet fully resolved, and just implementing the deal would require a complicated two-stage structure that poses its own perils politically. But if successful the hope is both to generate up to $1 trillion in added revenues for real deficit reduction over the next decade and give a shot-in-the-arm to a lagging economic recovery.

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