Welcome to the Cato podcast. My name is Ryan Bourne, Cato's R. Evan Schaff Chair for the public understanding of economics.

And today I'm delighted to be joined in the studio by Adam Michelle, who is Cato's Director of Tax Policy Studies,

and the guy we all go to at the moment for a name questions about our tax filing.

You know, I always get that, Adam.

Every time I tell somebody I'm an economist, people ask me for financial advice.

I'm guessing the similar thing happens to you with tax filings and given your director of tax policy studies.

Yes, I constantly get texts from friends as they're trying to figure out their taxes

and have to remind them that I am not an accountant and I'm not a tax lawyer. I do know something about the tax code, but I am by no means you're a go-to person for how to file your personal taxes.

Don't sell yourself short. You definitely help me when I was looking to hire a nanny as a house I'd employee for the first time.

A process I had to go through myself, yes.

So we're in tax filing season, everyone's favorite time of year.

But I want to start off with a bit of counterfactual history going into counterfactual projections.

So let's go back to last year.

The big tax news was obviously the passing of the one big, beautiful bill act.

Let's suppose it had never passed. We're heading into 2026. People are starting to get their paychecks.

How would people's tax outlook look different right now if that act last year had not passed?

Yeah, so I think this is misunderstood, or at least folks haven't,

never really focused on this fact that the reason of the one big, beautiful bill was such an

imperative for Congresses, had it not passed, it would have been just shy of $5 trillion tax increase on the American economy if the

expiring 2017 tax cuts and jobs act, which was the last big tax reform, had been allowed to expire.

That included tax increases on individuals. It would have people's taxes on average would have gone up by

$2,000 or $3,000. But it also included a bunch of expiration of business tax reforms that are

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