It’ll crystallize into staying power.

Lowi’s idea of sunset provisions started to gain traction in postWatergate America.64 “By setting a termination date on a particular law, a sunset provision is supposed to shift the burden of proof onto those seeking the law’s extension.”65 However, once the law is in effect for several years, it regains the old problem it was trying to fix. After a few years in effect the law had the potential to amass “considerable staying power as the political constituents and interests dedicated to its continued existence developed.”66

Americans are notorious for this dislike of taxes; the tax code is rife with sections that were not intended to be permanent changes, but once people were given a benefit, such as a deduction, it was hopeless to try to take such a significant tax saving device away.67 Take for example, the recent success of graduate students at American colleges to retain the decades old tuition shield, which was threatened by a proposed version of the Tax Act. Many universities waive tuition for graduate students in exchange for their work as teaching assistances and researchers.68 According to Steven Bloom, the Director of Government Relations at the American Council on Education, the House’s tax bill, as it was proposed in November, slashed $65 billion in tax benefits for higher education. 69 Graduate students would be hit the hardest by the repeal of the tuition waiver, which critically shielded their tuition from taxation. The tuition waiver provision functioned essentially as a way to make graduate education more affordable and accessible to the graduate students whose research is considered to provide “crucial knowledge and skills needed to drive the nation’s economy.”70 An analysis by the University of California, Berkeley found the proposed Tax Plan would raise taxes for graduate students by 61 percent for those who are campus teaching assistants and 31 percent for those who are research assistants if the annual tuition waiver became taxable.71 For private footnote institutions, such as MIT, taxes could more than triple.72 Throughout the entire University of California system, 23,000 graduate students received $250 million in tuition benefits in the 2015 to 2016 tax year.73 Increased taxes would discourage Americans from seeking advanced degrees at a time when the country badly needs a better educated workforce.74 Graduate students were lucky; their nationwide walk-outs, protests, and social media presence had some sort of impact in Washington. The final Act kept the tuition waiver, permitting graduate students to let out a sigh of relief as their tuitions remain safe, for now.