Rove says federal action possible on immigration and tax reform

While largely predicting political gridlock on most major issues facing the federal government, from the debt ceiling to major gun legislation, prominent conservative pundit Karl Rove says there’s a decent chance of significant legislation in two areas. One is immigration reform, which President George W. Bush attempted to take on while Rove was an adviser. “A lot of Republicans woke up and said, ‘How stupid have we been [on immigration]?’ ” says Rove, who delivered the keynote address at LABI’s annual meeting today. “Why didn’t we do this when we were in power? And why don’t we get it done?” The second is tax reform, where Rove sees the possibility of legislation similar to what was passed in 1986, in which rates are lowered while tax breaks and loopholes are reduced. He says tax reform should be pursued “in the spirit of revenue neutrality, which is a complete fiction.” After the 1986 reform legislation, the revenue to the federal government went up more than projected because tax simplification has a positive impact on the economy. “Revenue-neutral” tax reform also was a topic of the morning session of the LABI meeting, which included comments from Department of Revenue head Tim Barfield. —David Jacobs