‘I think this is a terrible deal.’
7th December 2010
Megan McArdle runs the numbers on the tax deal and concludes that Democrats won more than they lost.
With the wailing and gnashing of teeth from many progressives, you would think that Obama had cut a tax deal to eliminate tax breaks on the wealthy in exchange for freeze-drying Guatamalan orphans in order to use them as decorations on the Family Research Council’s Christmas Tree. Meanwhile, the conservatives I’ve seen are as proud of this deal as if they’d baked it from scratch.
I’m puzzled on both counts. Let me get the personal stuff out of the way: I think this is a terrible deal. I was rooting for gridlock to cause the tax cuts to expire entirely, which would probably have a moderately negative impact on the economy, but would at least somewhat forestall a devastating fiscal crisis down the road. If it was politically necessary to do tax cuts, I wanted them to be as small as possible, not $900 billion over two years.