"Every year, tax expenditures--Uncle Sam's myriad credits, exclusion, loopholes and breaks--cost the U.S. Treasury over $1 trillion a year. To put that in perspective, that figure is greater than the cost of Medicare, Social Security and national defense. Much larger than this year's projected budget deficit of $642 billion, tax expenditures equal roughly 30 percent of federal spending. It's no wonder why Republicans are so fond of calling for closing loopholes while lowering rates to produce "revenue-neutral" tax reform.
But a new study of the top 10 tax expenditures also show why GOP leaders including Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp refuse to name a single loophole they would close to achieve it. As the new Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis shows, half the value of those $900 billion in tax breaks goes to the top quintile of American income earners."
