Republicans Proposed Trigger Mechanism in Tax Bill Would Make Recessions More Severe

The Republicans had planned to include a trigger mechanism in their tax plan, which would have automatically raised taxes in the event of budget deficits that exceeded targets. This is classically bad economic policy. It means that if growth slows and the economy falls into a recession, the government would be raising taxes. Such a tax increase when the economy is already slowing would further dampen growth, making a downturn worse.

This is very basic economics. The fact that the Republicans...