Let’s talk about two theatrical performances that are coming up
On March 8, I was in Columbus, Ohio, debating Arthur Laffer about the economy. We appeared before hundreds of students who had never heard of Arthur Laffer (or me, for that matter). If you’ve heard of him but don’t quite recall what he did, let me refresh your recollection: Art was the founder in the 1980s of so-called “supplyside economics,” the bonkers idea that the benefits of lower taxes on the wealthy trickle down to everyone else.
Trickle-down economics provided the theatrical script for Ronald Reagan’s, George W. Bush’s, and Donald Trump’s tax productions. The tax cuts were real, but the idea they were based on was always a fantasy. Nothing ever trickled down.
Now we have the spectacle of House Republicans threatening to stage their own fantastical theater-of-the-absurd by refusing to raise the debt ceiling unless Democrats slash (as yet unspecified) spending. Which means that at some point this summer, Biden’s Treasury Department will say America is within days (or hours) of defaulting on its bills. A default would be catastrophic.
To counter this — and be able to say he’s taking on the national debt — Biden has come up with his own pyrotechnics.
In the budget released today, he’s proposing a “Billionaire Minimum Tax” that would require wealthy American households worth more than $100 million to pay 25 percent of their incomes in taxes (most middle-class Americans pay around 30 percent). Plus, they’d have to pay 25% a year on unrealized gains in the value of their liquid assets, such as stocks, which can accumulate value for years but are taxed only when they are sold (and not even then if left to their heirs).
Here’s the important thing: These taxes would apply only to the top one-hundredth of 1% of American households. Over half of the revenue would come from those worth more than $1 billion.
Biden is proposing additional tax hikes on the wealthy: reversing the Trump tax cut by raising the top tax rate to 39.6% from 37%, increasing the corporate tax to 28% from 21% (a partial rollback of Trump’s corporate tax cut), raising the tax on stock buybacks from 1% to 4%, and increasing the Medicare tax rate on income above $400,000 from its current rate of 3.8% to 5%.
All told, Biden’s new tax proposals would amount to a $2.5 trillion tax increase over a decade, on the richest of the rich.
Oh, and did I say? Taxing the rich is enormously popular.
Biden also wants to let Medicare officials negotiate with pharmaceutical companies for lower drug prices and cap the costs of drugs for seniors.
Also hugely popular.
But here’s the dirty little secret. Neither of these two theatrical productions — neither the Republicans’ refusal to raise the debt ceiling nor Biden’s big tax hike on the super-rich — will ever happen. They’re both fantasies.
A default on the nation’s obligations would bring on an economic calamity for which Republicans don’t want to be responsible.
A giant tax increase on the super-rich and big corporations is necessary but enacting it would be a miracle, given the political clout of the super-rich and big corporations and Republicans’ determination to protect both.
These two theatrical productions are being staged for the public — two competing performances, each intended to score political points against the other.
Biden’s is rational and the Republicans’ is nuts, but that doesn’t really matter. They will both end in a dramatic flurry of last-minute negotiations, seemingly death-defying moves and counter-moves, and breathtaking cliffhangers.
Exciting? Of course. Important? Meh. The denouement: The debt ceiling will be raised. The national debt will be lowered a bit. Social Security and Medicare will be left alone. And Biden and the Democrats will have leeway to do one or two more things before the gravitational pull of the 2024 election sets in — perhaps expand childcare or pre-k or enable more students to attend community college.
Art Laffer continues to spout trickle-down economics nonsense. The Republican Party continues to hyperventilate about spending and the national debt — except when they’re in the White House, where they spend like mad, cut taxes, explode the debt, and approve every debt-ceiling hike in sight (as they did under Trump).
Some things don’t change.