The Trump tax cuts will be a cornerstone of the current budget reconciliation process, where the House and Senate GOP are bound to duke it out over deficit concerns. Senate Republicans already said they will not agree to any plan that doesn’t make the 2017 tax breaks permanent. The House GOP wants corresponding spending cuts (via Bloomberg Government):
Trump wants his tax cuts extended permanently to boost the economy over the long haul. Senate Republicans say the House’s plan undermines that goal. The dispute centers on how the Congressional Budget Office will be required to calculate the cost of the tax cuts. As both chambers plan to negotiate a bicameral budget framework, the debate over tax-cut permanency is the main sticking point among Republicans.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), a conservative who lauded the House’s focus on spending cuts, said the House’s framework is “just not adequate” when it comes to tax-cut permanency.
“Unless it’s permanent, we’re not going to support it,” Johnson told reporters Wednesday.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), a House Freedom Caucus member, said House conservatives would oppose any Senate attempt to boost the budget plan’s tax cut numbers at the expense of spending reductions.
“What we know the Senate would want to do is increase the tax cuts and decrease the spending cuts,” Roy told reporters. “That would not go well, at least not with me.”
It’s no secret that making these tax breaks permanent is a priority. Besides securing the border, deporting illegal aliens, and finishing the border wall, I do consider making the Trump tax cuts permanent a key aim in this process. It’s also an issue, as you can see, that is fraught with danger. One can quickly see how things can go off the cliff. There’s also a nuclear option being discussed regarding how the tax cuts are scored.
.@jaketapper: “Next year, 91% of middle income Americans will receive a tax cut. Isn’t that a good thing?”@BernieSanders: “Yeah, it is a very good thing. And that’s why we should’ve made the tax cuts for the middle class permanent” #CNNSOTU https://t.co/ei8xTHGo1E
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) December 24, 2017
Left-leaning tax policy center finds that 80.4% of Americans would see a tax cut in 2018. The average decrease would be $2,140. Only 4.8% would see a tax increase. pic.twitter.com/52F9uDx90Z
— AG (@AGHamilton29) December 19, 2017
The Trump tax cuts benefitted most Americans. At the time, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said his main criticism of the cuts back in 2017 was that they didn’t go far enough. So, what’s this new maneuver? It will assuredly make Democrats fume, and they liken it to the nuclear option for the filibuster (via NBC News):
Republicans are considering a far-reaching change to the budget process that would obscure the deficit impact of extending President Donald Trump’s multitrillion-dollar tax cuts in order to avoid paying for them.
It comes as part of a massive bill to advance Trump’s agenda that Republicans are seeking to pass on a party-line basis. If the tactic is successful, it would upend long-standing precedent and change the accounting process for current and future lawmakers, with major policy stakes.
Extending the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which Trump signed into law in 2017, would cost $4.6 trillion over a decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the official nonpartisan scorekeeper.
That’s under the “current law” metric that has traditionally been used, as the tax cuts are slated to expire at the end of this year. But Senate Republicans want to use a different scoring method called the “current policy” baseline, which would assume that extending tax cuts costs $0 because they’re already law.
The chair of the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee, Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, endorsed the “current policy” approach, telling reporters that it “recognizes that extending current law does not change the tax policy, does not reduce tax revenue.”
Congressional GOP aides say the idea could have a huge impact on what they’re able to pass in the budget bill. If they use the current accounting process, they have no chance of making the 2017 tax cuts permanent, because that would require paying for it. And this process would also be key to unlocking Trump’s other tax proposals, like slashing taxes on tips and overtime pay.
It doesn’t matter what the legacy press says, they were always going to sell the line that the tax cuts benefit the wealthy. They did the same with the Bush tax cuts, which Democrats helped make permanent in the 2013 fiscal cliff deal. Mute their noise. Stay focused. We have a long way to go, but get this budget agreement passed. That should be the only goal. Any funny games from our end should be considered an act of party treason and punished severely if things derail.
