Annie Lowrey

I'm Elizabeth Troval for Marketplace.

I know it sounds like the most technical, confusing thing.

When you realize that it's actually just business investment, housing and consumption, it's actually much easier to think about it.

Net exports.

Government consumption.

So it gives us an idea of the underlying health of the economy as far as consumers are concerned and businesses.

You know, at the end of the day, there will continue to be government shutdowns.

There will continue to be trade distortions.

So it's really, you know, when we strip out all that noise and we look beneath the hood, you know, how healthy is the U.S.

economy?

We want big government and big deficits, right?

Thank you for having me.

We got here right slowly and then all at once, as feels kind of classic.

So, you know, I know that both of us remember a time that members of both parties talked about broadening the base and reducing rates.

And really, over time, both parties have completely abandoned that position for sort of different reasons.

Donald Trump's second term tax bill really lards the tax code up with a lot of provisions that don't just reduce the amount of revenue that the government is taking in.

They make the tax code much more complicated.

So a really good example of this is the no tax on tips provision.

At the same time, Democrats have become much more enamored of using things like tax credits to

in terms of social welfare policy.