A partial fiscal cliff is approaching.

In 2025, the next president and Congress will be tangling with a huge issue as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act provisions for individuals that Republicans pushed through in December 2017 will expire at the end of the year.  Marginal tax rates will go up for most taxpayers, the federal standard deduction and estate tax exemption will decrease substantially and certain deductions that were reduced or eliminated will revert to 2016 levels, probably increased by inflation.

Accordingly, current government projections for revenues, deficits and the national debt are based on increased individual income tax rates in 2026 and beyond.

A Republican president with a GOP-controlled Congress, will attempt to make the TCJA provisions for individuals permanent.  If Democrats control the government, however, they will have some hard decisions to make.  They have railed against this legislation since it was enacted but allowing taxes to automatically go back up will not be popular.  If neither party has total control, a battle royal will ensue.

When the George W. Bush tax cuts were set to expire at the end of 2010, President Obama agreed to extended them for two years.  This created the “fiscal cliff” at the end of 2012, which was also when sequestration budget cuts would kick in.  The Great Recession was keeping the economy depressed at the time and a tax increase might have made matters worse.  At the last minute, however, Obama managed to negotiate a deal with the GOP-Controlled Congress that raised tax rates for the wealthy, retained those for lower income brackets and delayed sequestration.  

Any prediction for 2025 is a fool’s errand but my guess is that an Obama-like deal is most likely. 

The nation appears to be in a bad mood. 

A shocking 37% of registered voters believe the nation’s problems are so bad that the United States is in danger of failing, according to a July New York Times/Siena College poll.  Republicans (56%), particularly GOP women (65%), are pushing this overall number higher, but even some Democratic women (20%) have this dark view of the nation’s viability.  Republicans are no doubt pessimistic because a Democrat is president; Democrats may be fearful because the GOP has become cult.

The Republican doomsayers are older – two-thirds of them are over 65 – and less educated, according to this poll.  They are also more likely than the GOP voting population to get their news from far-right sources, like Newsmax and the Epoch Times. 

I don’t think that these folks even care about Republican policies; and they are not a bit like the younger generations coming along.

Tomorrow’s voters won’t look or vote like today’s.

The make-up of the nation’s population is constantly changing and current demographic trends do not bode well for the GOP.

Around 4 million Americans attain the voting age of 18 every year, according to a July Washington Post article.  It predicts that 32 million of them will have become eligible to vote between 2016 and 2024.  Since about 2.5 million older Americans die each year, around 20 million of them will have been eliminated from the voting rolls during these same eight years.

This means that Gen Z voters (born in the late 1990s and early 2010s) will have increased by a net 52 million (32 + 20) against the boomers and silent generation groups between 2016 and the 2024 election, which is about 20% of the 2020 electorate of 258 million.  Remember, these millions of dearly departed tended to vote heavily for Republicans.

Gen Z voters are 48% non-white, compared to the boomers they are replacing in the electorate who were 72% White.  They may well be the most educated group in the nation’s history, and the majority of college graduates are now female.  Statistics show that college graduates are more likely to vote for Democrats.

Voters under 30 since 2017 have turned out in numbers 25% higher than the same age group of older generations did prior to the 2016 election, particularly in the midterms.  And Gen Z voters say they are much more motivated by polices than their elders who have taken a more partisan approach.

Consequently, polls show that younger voters are deeply concerned about, gun violence, climate change and abortion rights.  They are more worried about their future than the profits of big oil companies.  Statistics also show that young people have voted more frequently for Democrats and progressive policies in recent years than prior generations.  Perhaps that’s why candidate Vivek Ramaswamy wants to raise the voting age to 25.

Believe it or not, the Republican National Committee has some smart people in their organization.  And they are terrified by these demographics.  Will Republicans try to appeal to younger voters with enlightened policies, or, will they just keep trying to make it harder for them to vote?  I think we know answer to that question.

In fact, it seems to me that today’s Republican politicians are only interested in pleasing their hard right base.  While China is attempting to kick the U.S. off the world stage, they are threatening to impeach President Biden and shut down the federal government if spending isn’t slashed, particularly on climate change remediation.

Well, I don’t think the GOP has a very appealing story to tell voters before the 2024 elections and I believe the results will prove that.