Every campaign season, there are sharply different proposals about which taxes to raise or cut. But the Parties don't have the economic background to address this problem correctly.
The US Congress should have a department that uses a supercomputer to run various rates of taxation and compute their effects based on the actual IRS data collected from the previous years' returns. The goal is to optimize rates and measure the effects. It could also be used to find waste or excessive expenditures, or to project shortfalls or to model the effects of economic downturns on the budget.
It's possible that the CBO has this but does not attempt to optimize results. It needs to measure progressive tax on unearned income, progressive corporate tax, abused deductions, loopholes...(too little space