Investors and business leaders had better hope-and hope hard-that Representative John Shadegg (R-Ariz.) wins his uphill fight to succeed the discredited Tom DeLay as Republican leader in the House. Only with a dramatic change in leadership can the GOP hope to regain voter favor. The stakes are enormous. The tax cuts of May 2003 triggered our impressive economic expansion. Since then, despite volatility, stocks have increased $4 trillion in value; the economy has been expanding at an annual pace of 4% (the best of any large economy in the world); corporate profits have exceeded expectations; and more than 4 million new jobs have been created, in stark contrast to western Europe's parched private-job sector. The most critical of those tax cuts expire in 2008. If they are not made permanent or at least extended, markets will react adversely and the economy will stall.
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