 The U.S. tax code is a mess. In a time when there's not a lot of consensus among the political actors, there's bipartisan support for the assumption that we need serious tax reform right now. So what's wrong with it? It's complicated, it's wasteful, and it doesn't help us achieve major public policy goals like promoting economic growth, promoting increased personal savings, and helping people move up the economic ladder. Well like many things in Washington, special interests are exerting a disproportionate influence on the political process. That kind of explains how we got to where we are today. Different provisions kind of get carved out of the tax code with special constituencies. Some of the political leaders of the Senate Finance Committee have called for a clean slate. Let's wipe out all the existing expenditures that are in the tax code and start over and elevate provisions that make sense that help achieve real public policy goals. That's a good place to start. Then we can have a conversation about what do we want more of in this country. We want more economic growth, we want more personal savings, we might want more people to become homeowners and not just have money allocated to those at the very top through special tax provisions. Very Americans really get the short end of the stick. They don't get access to the amount of benefits that people on the upper end do, and if they have things like retirement accounts they don't have enough flexible savings, and they end up kind of cashing out on their 401Ks, they pay penalties, and they have less resources long term for their real needs. There's one proposal that's making progress in D.C. called the Financial Security Credit. It would offer a meaningful and accessible incentive for people to save. It would be a direct match for money put into designated savings products, not just long term vehicles like 401Ks and IRAs, but also savings bonds and 12 month certificate of deposits. That way they could access some resources that would meet some of their short term and immediate savings needs. Savings is a widely shared American goal. Right now we have a system that's wasteful, it's complicated, and it's ineffective. We can create a tax code that includes everybody, creates incentives for people to save for their long term intermediate and emergency needs, and in doing so can create a more fair and economically vibrant society.