These findings imply that making all of the tax cuts
permanent and continuing the deficit financing of
those cuts would have reduced the long-term level of
investment, which is consistent with a negative effect
on national saving and growth (Gale and Orszag 2005b).
As it stands, ATRA 2012 made most of the tax cuts
permanent, except those affecting only the top two
income tax brackets. In summary, the 2001 and 2003 tax
cuts contained several potentially pro-growth features
– like lower high-income tax rates and lower rates on
dividends and capital gains, but they also contained
some anti-growth features. Most prominent among these
were tax cuts that helped lower- and moderate-income
households, such as the creation of the 10 percent
bracket (which reduced incentives to work for people
above the 10 percent bracket because of the income
effect) and the expansion of the child credit (which
created significant income effects but not substitution
effects for labor supply). The tax cuts created large
deficits, which burdened the economy with lower national
saving and higher interest rates, all other things equal.
They provided only small reductions in marginal tax
rates, blunting the potential positive incentive effects.
They created positive income effects, but small or
no substitution effects, for a substantial number of
taxpayers, which discouraged labor supply and saving.
They also created windfall gains for the owners of old capital,
which further discourage productive supply-side responses.