My new piece for the print magazine is about the $5 trillion fiscal cliff that’s coming in 2025.
- The individual provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act expire.
- So does the suspension of the income limit on Obamacare subsidies.
- So does a bunch of contract authority from the bipartisan infrastructure law.
- So does supplemental state- and local-government funding from the pandemic years.
- So do the discretionary-spending caps from this year’s debt-ceiling deal.
- And Congress will need to raise the debt ceiling again.
- And fund the military, anti-poverty programs, education, transportation, and all the other stuff it normally funds.
- And entitlements continue on autopilot with both parties promising not to reform them.
- And interest rates are higher so borrowing is less affordable than it used to be.
It’ll be a fiscal perfect storm, and it’s due to strike in the first year of the next presidential administration. It would be really nice to have a sober, details-oriented, highly competent, fiscally conservative president who can hire sober, details-oriented, highly competent, fiscally conservative advisers and cabinet secretaries to help get the country through this potential disaster.