When Tax Cuts Expire: The Next Financial Crisis
Republicans are heading for a tremendous victory in November. They will then proceed to an equally tremendous crisis in January.
Everybody sees the victory coming; Republicans can practically taste it. (One Republican, Alaska senatorial candidate Joe Miller, sent a Twitter message to his followers September 30 about a campaign visit to Washington, DC: “Think I’ll do some house hunting while I’m in DC #teaparty #tcot #tpp #alaska #ak”.)
But few are anticipating the crisis, almost everybody – including apparently financial markets – assumes that some escape will be found out of the impasse. Let’s all hope so, because the threatened shock is not only political. The threatened shock could have global financial and economic reverberations.
Here’s the scenario:
The tax cuts enacted by President Bush expire in January 2010. (The expiry date was a gimmick to comply with congressional rules about balancing the budget over a 10-year term.)
If those tax cuts expire on schedule, they will deal a painful deflationary shock to a weakly recovering American economy. Not only will income taxes rise for almost everybody who pays income taxes, but so too will taxes on capital gains and corporate dividends.
President Obama says he wants to renew some of the tax cuts, but exclude individuals earning more than $200,000. Tax on that portion of their income above $200,000 would revert to Clinton-era rates.
Republicans wish to renew all of the Bush tax rates, and argue that it’s the tax cuts for upper-income earners that do most benefit for the economy.
These two positions might not seem impossible to compromise. Former Obama budget director Peter Orszag has proposed that the Bush tax cuts be extended in full, but only for two more years. The Republican leader in the House of Representatives, John Boehner, told a television interviewer that he would accept the Obama proposal rather than see the tax cuts expire altogether.
But Boehner’s comments were instantly repudiated and denounced by other Republican leaders. Boehner’s grasp on the House leadership is weak, and he will not dare to negotiate without broad consensus behind him.
Some Senate Democrats might be amenable to the Orszag idea. Not President Obama. He’s looking at polls that show massive unpopularity for the Republican idea of big tax cuts for all, even the very richest. He is looking to reanimate a disheartened Democratic base – and for the most tactically favorable place to draw a line in the sand against Republicans.
Meanwhile, the clock is ticking. Some form of renewal was widely hoped for this fall. It didn’t happen. Congress briefly returns after the elections but before the installation of new members. Democrats won’t want to deal then: They’ll be too busy enacting the remains of their core agenda before they lose their majority. Republicans won’t want to deal either: They’ll wait for reinforcements in January.
As both sides wait, the tax cuts will lapse. Political leaders may try to soothe markets by promising retroactive renewal. But as the maneuvering intensifies, compromise will recede. Republican supporters have already convinced themselves that President Obama is a socialist, a Marxist or worse. (Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has endorsed a cover story in Forbes magazine arguing that the president is motivated by Kenyan racial revenge.) And that’s before anybody has had their taxes raised. Imagine what they will say after!
Republicans will now be tempted to attack the administration in other ways: defunding the Democratic health reform for example.
Republican leaders have promised their base to repeal the reform. That is impossible: repeal would require a new law, signed by the president. But Republicans in the House can refuse to appropriate funds to execute the existing law. They can zero out unpopular individual pieces of the reform. Or they may audaciously seek to sabotage the entire thing.
And if the Republicans gain the expected majority in the House, they can use the investigative powers of Congress to harass and attack the administration. It’s an article of faith among many Republicans that the Obama administration is diabolically corrupt, thoroughly penetrated by shadowy labor and left-wing forces. Some Republicans are eager to expose these evil machinations to the light of day via congressional hearings.
Acrimony and paralysis: these are not unprecedented in congressional history. The republic survived an equally embittered partisan divide in 1998 and 1999. But that breakdown in the rules of the game occurred at a time of prosperity. Never before have Americans been threatened with a paralysis of government in a time of economic crisis. In 1981-82, so called “boll weevil” Democrats worked with Ronald Reagan. In 1974-75, Gerald Ford could veto the acts of an ultra-liberal Congress, knowing that he was backed by the strong personal goodwill of Democratic leaders. Franklin Delano Roosevelt of course had big Democratic majorities behind him throughout his tenure.
Americans may be about to test their political system in ways it is not designed for. If it occurs, the shock of that test will be felt around the world. It’s not too late for a better and calmer spirit to prevail. Prime Minister David Cameron expressed that thought very well at this week’s Birmingham party conference. He was speaking with reference to Britain of course, but his words apply even more aptly in the United States. Cameron urged "a sense that politics shouldn't be so different from the rest of life, where rational people do somehow find a way of overcoming their disagreements."
Lovely thought. But I’d advise any betting men out there: lay your money the other way.
Originally published in The Times.