Congress Likely Won't Act on Trade or Taxes, Says Washington Insider

From passing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) to tackling corporate tax inversions, Jared Bernstein a Senior Fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, believes Congress has very little incentive to act and make any substantive policy changes between now and January. Bernstein said, 'we are going to see a lot more scrutiny and pressure on these trade agreements. Whether the TPP is blessed by Congress is still very much up in the air.' Bernstein expects President Obama to push for passage of the TPP in the lame duck session but he gives it only a 50 percent chance of passing before the next president is sworn in. As for corporate tax inversions, while the Obama administration has taken a hard line on companies who move their headquarters to take advantage of lower taxes, Bernstein doesn't expect Congress to get more involved. Bernstein said, ' I don't see Congress at all disposed to do anything particularly substantive in the tax space and if they did, it's not really clear that inversions is where they would go.' TheStreet's Rhonda Schaffler spoke with Bernstein at the 2016 Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles.