Nor does the package do anything to address stubbornly high levels of unemployment, with 12 million Americans out of work. Instead, the deal could aggravate the problem. By allowing the payroll tax cut to expire, the deal takes money out of the hands of many Americans, sucking it out of the economy and slowing economic activity.
And, finally, the deal is too modest to fundamentally tame the government’s soaring debt. The nation’s long-term finances remain in peril, with federal spending projected to rise dramatically as a wave of retiring baby boomers turns to the government for help in paying for ever-more-costly health care.
Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist at J.P. Morgan Chase, cautioned that the deal is a stopgap measure at most.
“What’s challenging is that we’re still going to have some slowing in growth because of the tax hikes,” said Feroli, who estimated Tuesday that the deal will subtract 1 percentage point from already meager growth. “What’s not good is that deficits are still going to be large and it doesn’t begin to touch the longer-term horizon.”
Vincent Reinhart, chief U.S. economist at Morgan Stanley, said the deal does not even relieve the anxiety of businesses and consumers because so many economic challenges are left unresolved. “There’s an immediate fiscal drag, and there’s no offsetting bonus in confidence because fiscal uncertainty is still considerable,” he said.
Some benefits
Despite the drawbacks, the bipartisan deal may well have been the heaviest lift a deeply divided Congress could have accomplished. And the package, no doubt, has its benefits.
It is likely to prevent the nation from dipping back into recession. It cancels massive tax increases facing middle-class and poor Americans. And it delays deep and blunt government spending cuts for two months.
And while the agreement does nothing to reduce joblessness, it renews unemployment benefits that would have otherwise expired, offering vital help to the jobless and averting another blow to economic activity.
And finally, by raising a little more than $600 billion in fresh tax revenue from the wealthy, the deal takes a step toward bringing spending and taxes into line for the next few years — though economists say much more needs to be done over the long run.
President Obama had sought a larger agreement that would raise taxes by more than double what he got in the deal. He also wanted to take the debt ceiling off the table and offset deep spending cuts with more taxes and more targeted savings in entitlements — including Medicare and Social Security. He also asked for new economic stimulus measures to help bring down unemployment, including an extension of the payroll tax holiday.
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