acdha 3 days ago

Republicans really want to cut taxes for rich people but they don’t want to just straight-up acknowledge a huge debt increase for that goal, so they come up with different ways to say that something is budget neutral. That’s why a lot of the 2017 bill cuts were time-limited so regular people got the tax cut immediately and would hopefully remember it, but the time limit meant that CBO wouldn’t count it as a long-term debt increase and it’d be someone else’s problem when those expired and most people notice their taxes go up.

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Terr_ 3 days ago

There's a risk they'll try to break the Senate rules outright [0], by pretending that certain promised-to-be-temporary tax cuts now cost $0 to extend.

To put it in domestic terms:

* [January 1st] "Honey, I want to rent a Ferrari, I did the math and it fits if it's just one month! Pleeeeeease?"

* [February 1st] "Oh, that? It's the Ferrari rental-fee for the next month, don't worry, it's an existing expense, it's already part of our regular budget, so clearly we've proven we can afford it. We'll just have to cut back on insulin for the kids."

[0] https://www.americanprogress.org/article/senate-republicans-...

andrewlgood 2 days ago

Both parties do this to make spending bills appear smaller. This is why clean energy tax credits generally passed during Democrat administrations have to be periodically renewed.