BURSTThe Senate on Monday voted along party lines that making the expiring 2017 tax cuts permanent as part of President Trump's "big, beautiful bill" could be scored as deficit neutral and therefore comply with the Byrd Rule, allowing the bill to pass with a simple-majority vote.
Democrats failed to defeat the ruling by the Senate chair, which Republicans control, that the chamber's 940-page One Big, Beautiful Bill Act does not violate the 1974 Congressional Budget Act by using a controversial “current policy” baseline to score the extension of President Trump’s expiring tax cuts as not adding to the deficit.
If the tax portion of the bill were scored on a "current law" baseline, which assumes the 2017 Trump tax cuts would expire at the end of 2025, then it would add an estimated $3.5 trillion to federal deficits between 2025 and 2034 and would add to deficits after 2034 — beyond the 10-year budget window.
Scored this way, the Republican bill would fail the Byrd Rule, which governs what legislation is eligible to pass the Senate with a simple-majority vote on the reconciliation fast track, and Republicans would be forced to rewrite large parts of the measure.
But when scored with a "current policy" baseline, the Congressional Budget Office projects the tax cuts in the Finance section of the bill would increase deficits by not more than $1.5 trillion between 2025 and 2034 and would not increase on-budget deficits after 2034.
Democrats argued that a current policy baseline had never been used before in a budget reconciliation bill, and had never been used to score an extension of expiring tax cuts as not adding to future deficits, and therefore in compliance with the Senate’s Byrd Rule.
And Democrats highlighted over the weekend that most of the Republican reconciliation package uses a “current law” baseline to project the cost of the legislation.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) accused Republicans of “deploying fake math and budgetary hocus-pocus to make it seem like their billionaire giveaways don’t cost anything.”
Senate Finance Committee ranking member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) accused Republicans of “going nuclear” to blow up the Senate rules so they can make Trump’s 2017 tax cuts permanent.
“This is the nuclear option. It’s just hidden behind a whole lot of Washington, DC, lingo,” Wyden said on the floor.
Wyden pointed out through a parliamentary inquiry that the Finance portion of the bill used two different baselines, current policy and current law.
Senate Democrats had tried to schedule a meeting with Republican Budget Committee staff and with the parliamentarian to discuss whether using a current policy baseline violated Senate precedent and the Byrd Rule but Republicans “flat out refused” to participate in such a meeting, according to a person familiar with the conversations.
Senate Budget Committee Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Monday morning that Republicans are not overruling the parliamentarian and asserted that the parliamentarian has said it is up to him as Budget chairman to set the baseline.
And he argued that Democrats in the past have supported the use of a current policy baseline to project the cost of legislation, although it hasn’t been done before for a budget reconciliation package.
He noted that former Democratic Budget Committee Chair Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) used a current policy baseline for a past farm bill.
Republicans also point out that President Obama’s budget office supported using a current policy baseline to score the extension of the expiring Bush tax cuts at the end of 2012.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said on the floor Monday that former Obama Director of the Office of Management and Budget Jeff Zients supported using the current policy baseline for the 2012 fiscal cliff deal.