I keep hearing people call President Obama a socialist. A socialist?! Only in Washington is someone a socialist if his administration takes care of Wall Street fat cats and heels to the elite who can afford to hire effective lobbyists. What a town.

Reading my tax news this morning was down-right depressing. First I read in Tax Notes that the Obama administration may be backing down on its promise of bringing strong federal oversight to Wall Street, especially in the area of derivatives – the crap that helped bring us to the brink of the Second Great Depression with the aid and comfort of our tax code.

Then I read more about the “black liquor” controversy in which the paper industry is getting its own special government bailout via the tax code. According to Tax Notes, it seems the White House and Congress have no plans to fix the give-away until it expires. And as Marty Sullivan has recently posted, a new IRS ruling may actually make the give-away worse – worse that is if you are a taxpayer and not the paper industry. (Nothing like help from your friendly neighborhood socialist tax collector.)

A recent Wall Street Journal report said that the Obama administration had shelved its plans to overhaul the U.S. system of international taxation. The administration denied it. But Tax Notes also reports that the business community is still wary. As far as I am concerned that means the business community will continue to lobby hard until it’s sure that international tax reform is dead.

And that brings me to the President’s task force on tax reform in general. At its latest meeting the task force talked about something called the ReadyReturn system, under which the government would prepare tax returns for many of our citizens. Excuse me? OK, the ReadyReturn system is a nice little idea, but isn’t this like changing the windshield wipers while the car is on fire?

So, is this really change you can believe in? It looks to me more like retreat we should have expected. And that's just on the tax side of things.