William O’keefe: Time For Leadership On Tax Reform

Earlier this week, House Speaker Paul Ryan delivered a major speech articulating his vision for how lawmakers should enact comprehensive tax reform this year, ideally before Thanksgiving. Leadership to bring consensus is urgently needed at this point to make good on pledges by President Trump and Republicans last year to take action on reforming our antiquated tax code. In anticipation of this optimistic goal, the stock market has arguably been on a strong run — the S&P 500 has risen about 17 percent — and data from the Richmond Fed show substantial business investment increases in the first quarter of 2017.