The Budget Guy says more on GOP's Tax Scam

I wanted to forward to you another great column from Stan Collender at Forbes (aka TheBudgetGuy). Collender's been consistently hammering Trump and GOP for their absurdity of a tax bill, and his article from the weekend is titled "Consider This An Indictment Of Trump/GOP Economic Policy Making."

The first GOP failure Collender sees is that the current economic conditions are good (well, unless you work for wages), and that makes it an awful time to put in tax cuts.

"Trump Family and Friends Tax Cut" now in conference between the House and Senate is the wrong fiscal policy at the absolute wrong time. With the U.S. economy humming along, the stock market seeming to reach new record highs daily, unemployment just reported to be at an 17-year low and corporate profits soaring, this is not the correct moment to add a $2 trillion-plus federal stimulus. It may be good politics (and recent polls show even that's not certain), but it's definitely not smart economics.

The next fault Collender sees is the GOP's reliance on magical thinking that not only believes that there will be a big boost to growth from these tax cuts (there won't be), but that the growth will be so spectacular that it'll allow the tax cuts to "pay for themselves."

First there was the almost comical GOP attempts to discredit the Congressional Budget Office by former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) and Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney that culminated in a failed attempt by the House Freedom Caucus to eliminate CBO's Budget Analysis Division.

Then it was the decision by Senate Republicans to ignore the Joint Committee on Taxation's estimate of the huge revenue loss from the tax cut in favor of a purely superstitious belief that the bill would pay for itself even though not one reputable analysis showed that to be true.

Finally, there was the GOP's reliance on a repeatedly made promise by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin that there was a report from his department proving that the tax cut would pay for itself even though no one had ever (and still hasn't) seen that report. In the meantime, Treasury's inspector general has now begun an investigation to determine whether Mnuchin withheld the report because it didn't show what he said it would prove.

Oh wait, Mnuchin and the Treasury Department did come out with that long-awaited "analysis" yesterday.

Treasury releases its dynamic "analysis" of the tax bill, which appears to actually be an "analysis" of the tax bill PLUS unrelated imaginary legislation that doesn't exist yet https://t.co/4DU1utS5Vw pic.twitter.com/E2cZhOMUEp

— Catherine Rampell (@crampell) December 11, 2017

In other words, Mnuchin was full of shit, and knows that this fraud won't "pay for itself".

Collender ends the column by noting yet another deceit by the Congressional GOP. Most tax cuts on individuals are set to end after either 8 or 10 years, as part of reconciliation rules that require these tax cuts not to add to the long-term deficit. What Collender notes is that much like the Bush tax cuts of the 2000s, GOPs are not intending to have these tax cuts end, but stay in as law, and keep adding to the deficit for many more years to come.

The official estimates are that Trump Family and Friends Tax Cut will increase the federal deficit and national debt by "only" $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years and, as noted above, the GOP is refusing even to acknowledge that number. But when you recalculate the legislation's true impact by assuming -- as Republican tax writers want us to do -- that the tax cuts set to expire in the future actually will be extended, the real cost of the bill increases to between $2 and $2.5 trillion ....

So put aside any lofty remarks and holier-than-thou statements about the deficit, national debt or Washington spending and taxing the Trump administration and congressional Republicans make between now and the 2018 election. What they're doing is closer to a plot on "Law and Order" than solid economic policy making.