Senate Republicans Reinvent Math So They Can Make America Super Poor

[Zorro]

Lindsey Graham is drunk with power.

Here is a riddle for the discerning Wonkette reader: When is a tax cut not actually a tax cut? The answer, of course, is whenever the Republicans say so!

The specific Republican making the claim here, though he is doing it with the tacit permission of his caucus, is freeze-dried hairball Lindsey Graham, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. John McCain’s one-time remora has been working on a budget resolution that would allow the Senate Republicans to pass much of Donald Trump’s agenda in what the emperor has called one “big, beautiful” bill. Then they can all take the rest of the year off and go play some golf at one of Trump’s clubs while the rest of us stare at our 401k balances and weep into our canned soup.

Republicans would prefer that no one realize just how much all the tax cuts that are a centerpiece of the big, beautiful agenda will eventually cost. To get around that pesky problem, Graham announced that he is using an accounting trick known by its technical term, “making shit up.”

Here is the issue. Budget resolutions project government spending and revenue in a 10-year timeframe. That means this new resolution has to account for the fact that the 2017 Trump tax cuts are set to expire in 2027. This is a problem because the Republicans would like to not only extend those tax cuts, but tack on many, many more. Add it all together, and suddenly this bill might blow out the deficit and add anywhere from $5 to $11 trillion to the national debt over the next decade.

Normally, or at least in what used to count as “normally,” the reconciliation bill that will eventually emerge would get scored by the Congressional Budget Office. The CBO would then report whether the bill costs what lawmakers said it would. In this case, the expensive bill would be much more likely to pass because the expiration of the Trump tax cuts would allow CBO to assume more revenue, so the bill would be more likely to be deficit neutral.

If the bill doesn’t pass the CBO’s scoring, the Senate parliamentarian can advise that the bill does not qualify for a reconciliation vote, which requires only a simple majority to pass. Republicans would have to make all sorts of spending cuts to the bill for it to get through. Or they would have to reduce the size of the tax cuts. That is definitely a nonstarter for them.

Alternately, Republicans can ignore the parliamentarian and bring the bill to the floor as is. Ignoring the parliamentarian is considered some sort of grotesque violation of the Senate’s precious norms, but we’re long past the point of anyone outside of the Democratic caucus caring about that.

https://www.wonkette.com/p/senate-republicans-reinvent-math

[underpants]

1. remora

a slender marine fish which attaches itself to large fish by means of a sucker on top of the head. It generally feeds on the host's external parasites.

[J_William_Ryan]

2. "...Republicans would like to not only extend those tax cuts, but tack on many, many more."

Republicans are incapable of sound, responsible governance; indeed, they have contempt for it.

[Bayard]

3. John McCain would be slapping Lindsay up side the head

[bronxiteforever]

4. Democratic Senators and House members

Need to use the word depression in rebuttal. The deficit monster the GOP is creating will crater the Country for a generation and exponentially enhances the enormous damage to the American economy already bleeding from the self inflicted trade war launched by the GOP.
The GOP is literally sacrificing America’s future for their masters in the billionaire class.