October 27, 2017

After tax cuts, deep budget cuts

Center on Budget & Policy Priorities - With the House adopting the Senate-passed budget resolution today, Congress has now set in motion a fast-track process to facilitate costly, ill-conceived tax cuts that will swell deficits by $1.5 trillion over the next decade. As Robert Greenstein notes in a commentary, the deficit increases directly contradict the earlier assurances from congressional leaders that tax reform would be revenue neutral.

The commentary and a series of CBPP briefs note that once Congress passes deficit-bloating tax cuts, lawmakers who supported them will likely turn their attention to budget cuts to address the higher deficits. Greenstein notes:

Big, deficit-increasing tax cuts would have damaging consequences. The congressional budget plan calls for deep cuts in many important programs largely to address existing deficits. There should be little doubt that if the tax cuts are enacted, many of their proponents will, in future years, cite the resulting increases in deficits in arguing for sharp budgetary cutbacks. And low- and middle-income families would almost certainly bear much of the weight of such budget cuts, even though they would receive little benefit from the tax cuts.

1 comment:

Greg Gerritt said...

if they cut the military budget, tax cuts would work, thoguh there is no evidence at all that tax cutxs increase the economic growth rate, so the whole plan is based on a lie.