The analyses for the Senate Republicans' big tax giveaway/Obamacare repeal/Medicare cuts just keep showing worse and worse news for Republicans trying to pretend like the deficit matters. Even their trick of "dynamic scoring"—estimating the potential growth result of tax cuts—is capable of enough book cooking to make it work.
To comply with the terms of the Byrd Rule that allows Senate Republicans to bypass a Democratic filibuster, the tax plan must meet two conditions. On the one hand, it needs to comply with the budget resolution's mandate to raise the deficit by no more than $1.5 trillion over 10 years. According to Penn-Wharton, it does that. But on the other hand, it needs to not increase the long-term deficit in the years following.
And here's where Penn-Wharton says that there's a problem: "We estimate that the Senate TCJA continues to reduce revenue in years beyond the 10-year budget window."
Critically, this conclusion does not change when they attempt a "dynamic" score that considers the potential growth-boosting effects of tax cuts. Instead, they find that "the Senate Tax Cuts and Jobs Act reduces federal tax revenue in both the short- and long-run relative to current policy. In the near term, there is a small boost to GDP, but that increase diminishes over time."
That's a big problem for the deficit peacocks, all those Republicans who want to be known as hawks as long as the conversation is about cutting social insurance programs, but who are always willing to make the big donors happy with tax cuts. Even some of these guys are having a problem with this bill.
"The savings, the score, it just isn't valid because you know that they’re not going to follow through," Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), an avowed fiscal conservative, said in a recent interview. "You can't assume that we'll grow a backbone later. If we can't do it now, then it's tough to do it later." […]
Flake and Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, another independent-minded Republican not running for reelection next year, have been among the most outspoken with their deficit concerns. So too, has Sen. John McCain of Arizona, a major wildcard for GOP leadership in the tax fight.
But other Republicans have gradually become more vocal about their own deficit worries, with Sens. Todd Young of Indiana and James Lankford of Oklahoma among them. GOP leaders can only lose two votes before the tax bill tanks.
This is a massive trainwreck of a bill, on pretty much every front. The Obamacare sabotage in repealing the individual mandate, the stealth attack on Social Security, the $25 billion annual cut to Medicare, the attack on the middle class—all of it is a looming disaster. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell seems determined to push it through next week.
We have to stop it.
Jam your senators' phone lines at (202) 224-3121. Tell them to vote "no" on the Republican tax bill.