Senate’s Tax Bill Will Add $270 Billion to the Deficit Next Year, Despite Gimmicks
In deciding whether to vote for the tax and spending package now sitting before the Senate, Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.) says he’s been asking himself a simple question: Does the bill increase the federal deficit next year?
“The answer, without question, is that this bill will grow the deficit,” Paul told his fellow senators on Sunday afternoon.
Most budget projections in Washington operate on a 10-year window, which is useful for long-term policymaking—not all fiscal consequences of a new law are apparent in the first year after it is passed. Unfortunately, as Paul points out, the 10-year budget window also creates opportunities for lawmakers to load up bills like this one with gimmicks designed to hide the true cost.
Over 10 years, the Senate version of the “One Big Beautiful Bill” Act will reduce the deficit by $521 billion, according to a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis released Sunday. Those budget savings are the result of about $1.3 trillion in spending reductions—almost all of which would occur in the last five years of that 10-year window.
Whether those spending cuts actually happen will depend on future lawmakers sticking to the plan. But the existence of that plan can be used to offset tax cuts approved by lawmakers today.
And that’s only the second biggest gimmick in the bill. The largest gimmick by far is the decision to have the CBO score the legislation based on the faulty assumption that the 2017 tax cuts would not expire this year. That so-called “current policy” baseline hides the $3.9 trillion budgetary hit that would otherwise have to be offset to make the bil
Article from Reason.com
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