{"id":7215,"date":"2025-03-12T22:33:37","date_gmt":"2025-03-12T22:33:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/be-careful-about-this-warnings-abound-as-gop-considers-writing-off-tax-cuts\/"},"modified":"2025-03-12T22:33:37","modified_gmt":"2025-03-12T22:33:37","slug":"be-careful-about-this-warnings-abound-as-gop-considers-writing-off-tax-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/be-careful-about-this-warnings-abound-as-gop-considers-writing-off-tax-cuts\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Be careful about this\u2019: Warnings abound as GOP considers writing off tax cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

It\u2019s the accounting maneuver that could break the Senate, upend the federal budget process and explode the national debt.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s according to critics of a fiscal tactic that congressional Republicans are now seriously considering as they struggle to figure out how to deliver on all of President Donald Trump\u2019s policy demands.<\/p>\n

Adopting the \u201ccurrent policy baseline,\u201d as it\u2019s called, could be the only way for the GOP to make Trump\u2019s 2017 tax cuts permanent and avoid painful cuts to federal programs, as well as pile on new income tax exemptions for tips, overtime and Social Security. Trump is expected to discuss the move with members of the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee at a White House meeting Thursday.<\/p>\n

If lawmakers adopt the change, it would essentially make it appear as though extending current tax rates, set to expire at the end of the year, would cost nothing rather than the roughly $4 trillion over 10 years that nonpartisan scorekeepers estimate. <\/p>\n

But while some Republicans argue that continuing current tax rates shouldn\u2019t be counted toward the deficit, critics of the maneuver \u2014 including prominent GOP budget experts \u2014 say that it would be a recipe for disaster, a fiscal Pandora\u2019s box that once opened could be used to forever excuse huge ongoing deficits.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would caution my friends, my Republican friends and senators up there, be careful about this,\u201d said Bill Hoagland, the former GOP staff director for the Senate Budget Committee. \u201cSomeday you may be in the minority.\u201d<\/p>\n

The tactic is so tempting because it would solve a very difficult political problem for Republicans. Budget hawks in the House who do not want the party-line domestic policy bill adding to federal deficits want to ensure that planned tax cuts are closely tied to the amount of spending cuts Republicans can achieve. <\/p>\n

Even then, the $4.5 trillion upper limit the House put on tax cuts does not leave enough room for a permanent extension of expiring tax cuts, in addition to all the other tax-related asks Trump has made.<\/p>\n

For instance, adding on Trump\u2019s other tax-related asks, such as income tax exemptions for overtime, tips and Social Security benefits, could add up to another $5 trillion<\/a>, according to the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.<\/p>\n

Critics say members of either party could use the maneuver to disguise trillions of spending through tax policies. Democrats argue that if Republicans move forward, they would be doing away with decades of precedent \u2014 and reneging on decades of anti-deficit rhetoric \u2014 to enact tax cuts for the wealthy.<\/p>\n

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren<\/a> called it \u201cmagic math\u201d in an interview and said going in that direction would end the congressional budget process as it has existed for more than 50 years. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey can\u2019t repeal the underlying reality, a $4.7 trillion giveaway to billionaires and giant corporations will cost $4.7 trillion,\u201d she said, referring to how much the tax cut extensions are estimated to cost with interest.<\/p>\n

Said Sen. Mark Warner<\/a> (D-Va.), who signed onto a recent letter with Warren questioning the GOP\u2019s strategy, \u201cIf this was done in the accounting world, you wouldn\u2019t be an accountant for very long.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the leading advocate of moving to a current policy baseline, Senate Finance Chair Mike Crapo<\/a> (R-Idaho), argued that it would rectify budget scoring rules that favor higher spending over keeping taxes low.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re not changing the tax code, you\u2019re simply extending current policy, you are not increasing the deficit,\u201d Crapo said on Fox Business in January. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to get some kind of sensibility into the way that we score.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sen. John Kennedy<\/a> (R-La.), a Budget Committee member, brushed off the idea that Republicans were undermining the budget procedures in place since 1974 \u2014 but also acknowledged that turnabout could be fair play when Democrats get their next governing trifecta.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey will probably use current policy themselves in the future when they\u2019re back in the majority,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Besides being controversial from an accounting perspective, the current policy baseline represents a major political gamble for Republicans, with the fate of potentially all of Trump\u2019s tax agenda hanging in the balance.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because the GOP might not know for weeks, if not months, if the maneuver will pass muster with the Senate\u2019s parliamentarian. With a permanent extension of the expiring tax cuts moving toward the center of the Republican must-do list, an adverse ruling could create a huge hole in the GOP\u2019s math.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would complicate making the tax cuts permanent,\u201d said Sen. Lindsey Graham<\/a> (R-S.C.), who chairs the Budget Committee.<\/p>\n

That could create pressure for Republicans to overrule or even fire the parliamentarian \u2014 a move that would upend the delicate balance senators of both parties have adhered to for decades: Only bills that comply with strict fiscal rules aimed at reducing deficits can be exempted from the chamber\u2019s 60-vote requirement for ending debate and moving to a final vote.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs far as I\u2019m concerned, that might as well give away the filibuster in the Senate,\u201d Hoagland said.<\/p>\n

Republicans, for their part, say they aren\u2019t doing anything out of compliance with the longstanding budget rules. And there\u2019s widespread skepticism inside the Senate GOP that they would ever vote to overrule the longtime parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough.<\/p>\n

We can say \u201cit\u2019s a $4 trillion deficit that we\u2019re going to add into this, or we can say it\u2019s current policy, but everyone knows it\u2019s the exact same the next day,\u201d said Sen. James Lankford<\/a> (R-Okla.) in an interview. \u201cSo it\u2019s nomenclature.\u201d<\/p>\n

Key GOP staff are already quietly meeting with the parliamentarian to try to get informal vibe checks on what she is thinking. Though senators won\u2019t get a formal ruling until they go through what\u2019s called a \u201cByrd bath\u201d \u2014 when the reconciliation bill is vetted to make sure it complies with the rules that allow them to pass it by a simple majority \u2014 they can and frequently do have conversations with the parliamentarian\u2019s office before that as they try to game out their procedural strategy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think the law is pretty clear \u2026 but these things are all subject to discussion and arguments made in front of the parliamentarian,\u201d Senate Majority Leader John Thune<\/a> said in a brief interview, while cautioning that they were a long way away from that point.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s skepticism from former longtime congressional staff and budget experts that the Senate GOP plan will fall within the rules of reconciliation. Sen. Jeff Merkley<\/a> (D-Ore.), the top Democrat on the Budget Committee, predicted the parliamentarian won\u2019t green-light the GOP strategy because it “seems like a pretty big stretch” of the rules.<\/p>\n

George Callas of Arnold Ventures, who served as former Speaker Paul Ryan\u2019s top tax aide during the drafting of the 2017 law, said adopting the current policy baseline would amount to a \u201chuge gimmick.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy understanding is that the Senate parliamentarian gives a great deal of weight to the existing rules and the precedents and takes a skeptical look at just expedient reinterpretations of those rules for political reasons,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s the accounting maneuver that could break the Senate, upend the federal budget process and explode the national debt. That\u2019s according to critics of a fiscal tactic that congressional Republicans are now seriously considering as they struggle to figure out how to deliver on all of President Donald Trump\u2019s policy demands. Adopting the \u201ccurrent policy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7215\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}