Fiscal Cliff Crisis Rooted in Senate Ploy to Pass Bush Tax Cuts

In early 2001, Paul O’Neill, the new Treasury secretary, began work on a plan for radical tax reform. He wanted simpler forms and fewer deductions, which would make it easy for people to prepare their taxes and cost the government less to process them. He presented a five-inch-thick binder of research to a senior White House official.

“Don’t ever let that see the light of day,” O’Neill says he was told. President George W. Bush didn’t want to deliver a tax overhaul. He wanted to deliver the tax cuts he’d promised as a candidate, Bloomberg Businessweek reports in its Aug. 6 issue.