Paul Weinstein
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Paul Weinstein is chief operating officer and senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute, a centrist think tank based in Washington, D.C. that is affiliated with the Democratic Leadership Council. He is also on the faculty of The Johns Hopkins University and has also taught at Columbia University and Georgetown University. Weinstein, who worked for eight years in the Clinton White House, first as Chief of Staff of the Domestic Policy Council and later as Senior Adviser for Policy Planning to Vice President Al Gore, is the author of the textbook The Art of Policymaking. He has written extensively on issues such as economic policy, government spending, Social Security and taxes.
In April 2005, PPI published his proposed policy blueprint Family-Friendly Tax Reform, in which he proposed replacing 68 tax credits and loopholes in the U.S. tax code with the following four tax breaks aimed at low- and middle-income families:
- A $3,000 per year College Tax Credit (CTC), available to any student in college or the first two years of graduate school;
- An "above-the-line" Home Mortgage Deduction (HMD), available to all taxpayers (the current tax deduction for mortgage interest is only available to those who itemize their deductions);
- A Family Tax Credit (FTC), worth $1 for every two $2 earned, up to a predetermined limit, available to all households or individual taxpayers earning less than $120,000 per year
- A Universal Pension (UP), into which a worker can "roll over" his or her 401(k) accounts when he or she changes jobs
Weinstein testified on tax reform before the President's Advisory Commission later that year.
