Most efforts to develop a theory of tax policy change have emphasized institutional, procedural, and partisan explanations. By contrast, very little attention has been directed toward the budgetary context within which tax policy is determined. The long-term evolution of federal income tax policy, however, demonstrates the importance of budgetary context and constraints, and this relationship is particularly evident in the case of the Tax Reform Act of 1986. Passage of this comprehensive reform measure depended on a revenue-neutral standard that ignored the traditional norms governing aggregate revenue levels.
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