nd families are to make decisions not based on what's best for them, but on how they can maximize their tax write-offs. In other words, the tax code distorts our economic activity, keeping families from making the choices they feel are best for their children's futures, and keeping businesses from pursuing the strategies that best help them grow and create jobs. Economists across the political spectrum agree that a less time-consuming, economy-distorting tax code would spark significant economic growth. Tax reform would dramatically simplify the code, and in return for fewer loopholes, tax rates would go down. That was the general outline of the bipartisan plan agreed to by President Reagan and Speaker O'Neill in 1986. And it's the outline of the tax reform plans on the political radar today, which could clear away many of the tax preferences that have crowded into the tax code in the last 25 years. A commission under President George W. Bush recommended that kind of tax simplification -- and so did the bipartisan fiscal responsibility commission appointed by President Barack Obama. But even though leaders in both parties agree on the importance of tax reform, their approaches to the problem shed an important light on their priorities. The budget plan recently put forward by Republicans give trillions of dollars in further tax cuts to the wealthiest among us -- leaving a big hole in our budget. I find that windfall and the accompanying deficits hard to justify at a time when tax receipts are at their lowest point in six decades and income inequality is at its highest point since the 1920s. But even worse are the harsh sacrifices that Republican plan imposes on working families. The Republican plan ends the Medicare guarantee, transforming it into a system that will provide seniors with less coverage each year, and raises their health care costs. It also dismantles Medicaid, putting many seniors' nursing home care at risk and cutting off care for the poor and disabled. Republicans have made their priorities very clear: they put their high-income tax breaks directly on the backs of the elderly and the middle class. And at the same time, Republicans spend so much on those tax breaks that their plan does not balance the budget for decades -- decades during which our debt will continue to grow. There is a better, fairer way. As President Obama argued in his recent speech on the deficit, we must "reform