The Brookings Institution: Gale Testimony

Second, there is another big part of the problem: namely, the sunsets that are in the tax code. If all of those sunsets were removed, revenue would fall by 2.4 percent of GDP on a permanent basis. If, in addition, the alternative minimum tax is reduced so that only 3 percent of taxpayers stayed on it--about the current level--revenues would fall by about 2.7 percent of GDP.

These prospective revenue losses are huge. They are more than three times as large as the 75-year actuarial deficit in social security, expressed as a share of GDP. They exceed the 75-year actuarial deficit in the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds. They are larger than the permanent deficit in Social Security.

These facts imply that the aggressive tax-cutting agenda that the Administration has pursued the last few years deserves equal billing with Social Security and Medicare as "the real fiscal danger." They also imply that the decisions you make about extending the tax cuts, about removing the sunsets, have long-term fiscal implications that are greater than those that arise from fixing the entire social security problem.