The tax cuts will also hamper the ability to fight recessions in other ways. With higher deficits, political leaders will be more reluctant to engage in discretionary stimulus programs to boost the economy. By making some typical instruments, such as expensing, part of the tax code, the tax cuts reduce the number of tools that policymakers can use to fight downturns. A recent paper by two economists with the Joint Committee on Taxation shows that the subsidies for foreign derived intangible income operates in a procyclical fashion by rising during booms and falling during recessions, precisely the opposite of how automatic fiscal stabilization should work. In one way, it is fitting that the 2017 tax law has poor cyclical properties. Indeed, the deficit financed tax cuts were enacted and implemented at a time when the economy was already doing very well, exactly the opposite of how strong stabilization should work. When the economy eventually turns down, the tax cuts will exacerbate the problem. Policymakers can offset this impact by making stronger discretionary fiscal choices when a recession arrives or by installing stronger automatic stabilizers today