Experts: Odds of device tax repeal close to zero

You've all heard that the medical device industry and others will continue revving up attempts to overthrow the hated new excise tax that began Jan. 1. But a number of public policy experts tell the Star-Tribune that the odds are near zero that they'll achieve this goal, in part because it becomes very difficult to stop a tax once it is enacted. "You have to reverse the whole legislative process," Don Kettl, dean of the University of Maryland School of Public Policy, explains in the story. Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute is quoted in the story as saying that repeal of the tax is an extremely optimistic goal, considering that Congress is now focused on adding revenue to the deficit-laden federal budget and not taking it away. Story