JCT Report: No, The GOP Tax Bill Does Not Pay For Itself

UNITED STATES - JULY 25: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., listens as Senate GOP leaders speak following the vote on the motion to proceed on health care legislation on Tuesday, July 25, 2017. (Photo By ... UNITED STATES - JULY 25: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., listens as Senate GOP leaders speak following the vote on the motion to proceed on health care legislation on Tuesday, July 25, 2017. (Photo By Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call) (CQ Roll Call via AP Images) MORE LESS
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Just a few hours before holding a vote on a bill to fundamentally overhaul the American tax code and kill Obamacare’s individual mandate, senators received a bombshell report from the Joint Committee on Taxation finding that the bill would cost the federal government about $1 trillion dollars over a decade, even when taking into account increased revenues from economic growth.

The report directly contradicts claims by the Trump administration and Republican leaders that the tax cuts would completely pay for themselves, and will fuel tensions in the final hours of the bill’s debate between the GOP’s deficit hawks demanding a revenue-raising “trigger” and those who insist one is not necessary.

The trigger currently under discussion would only claw back about $350 billion over 10 years, far short of the $1 trillion hole the tax bill would leave in the federal budget.

Minutes after the report was released, Democrats pointed to the bipartisan committee’s findings as evidence that the GOP is trying to pass its tax cuts using, in the words of Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), “an array of unicorn magic growth fairy analyses.”

“These folks are the independent referees when it comes to taxes. They’re the ones vested with this responsibility, hired by Congress and paid by taxpayers,” Wyden said of the Joint Committee on Taxation. “And their report ends the fantasy of magical growth and claims that tax cuts pay for themselves.”

Read the full report here:

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Notable Replies

  1. Avatar for jtx jtx says:

    Now they will use the trigger to end Obamacare, Medicare, SS, or insert your own idea.

  2. Yep Here’s Rubio

    “I analyze this very differently than most,” Rubio told the crowd. “Many argue that you can’t cut taxes because it will drive up the deficit. But we have to do two things. We have to generate economic growth which generates revenue, while reducing spending. That will mean instituting structural changes to Social Security and Medicare for the future,” the senator said. […]

  3. Avatar for cd cd says:

    duh, clearly my grandchildren will be paying for Eric Trump’s tax break for decades, and the Kochs, and the Mercer’s and Meghan McCain’s…

    republicons clearly think that the wealthy aren’t rich enough to pay their own taxes, only the middle class and poor have enough money for that

  4. Anyone know if they actually closed all the corporate loopholes so Apple, Google and GE will have to pay a 20% tax instead of zilch ?

  5. Tax cuts can only boost the economy if done so in a revenue neutral way. This one cuts taxes at great expense. The great expense will drag down any gain made from the cut.

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