Delegating authority promotes long-run fiscal sustainability even if Congress controls the tax distribution.

Second, and more controversially, Congress should consider delegating some control over income tax rates, which would be unprecedented in U.S. history. Such authority could be granted to the Treasury Department, or, perhaps more realistically, to some other, arguably more independent, agency such as the Federal Reserve or a newly created independent authority. Giving the Federal Reserve some control over income tax rates would allow it to coordinate fiscal policy with existing monetary policy in the hope of dampening business cycles. Moreover, the Fed or some other independent agency might be able to precommit to an optimal policy plan over time, which Congress notoriously struggles to do. Third, in designing the tax system efficiently and fairly to promote longrun fiscal sustainability—a goal that has eluded Congress for decades—the legislative body should consider delegating the tax reform component of a long-run deficit-closure effort to an independent commission similar to the Base Realignment and Closure model.15 The rationale for this move has to do with collective action problems that inhibit the legislative branch from taking action, even in the face of strong evidence that such action is social welfare-maximizing. In addition, it should be noted that Congress could delegate in any or all of these ways while still retaining a considerable degree of control over the one aspect of tax lawmaking that many regard as quintessentially legislative in character: namely, distributional consequences. Lawmakers and voters may consider it important for Congress to determine as much as possible the ultimate distribution of the federal tax burden across taxpayers. In that case, Congress could attach a requirement to any or all of these new forms of tax delegation that any policymaking output by the agency must be accompanied by a particular distribution of the tax burden designated in advance by, and remaining fully within the control of, Congress. We discuss this possibility further below.