After a false start Wednesday, House Republicans approved the Senate-amended budget framework, 216-214, setting up tax reform via the reconciliation process.
Republicans can now move to nailing down the details of extending expiring Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) provisions and putting into place other Trump administration tax promises.
The House had passed their tax reform blueprint back in February — providing the House Ways and Means Committee with up to $4.5 trillion for tax cuts in exchange for a minimum of $1.5 trillion in spending cuts. For Ways and Means to make use of the full $4.5 trillion, however, committees would collectively need to come up with another $500 billion in deficit reductions.
The Senate, meanwhile, passed an amended version of the House budget resolution last week mandating just $4 billion in spending cuts. The Senate version also provides only $1.5 trillion to the chamber’s taxwriting committee — but assumes the use of a scoring tactic that would make extending expiring TCJA provisions appear to be free.
Just two House Republicans voted against the budget resolution on Thursday, Representatives Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Victoria Spartz (R-IN). Two additional Republicans did not vote, Representatives Bob Onder (R-MO) and David Valadao (R-CA).
“If you were trying to hasten financial collapse of our country and bribe voters to go along with it, the strategy wouldn’t look much different than what Congress is doing today,” Massie said before the vote began. “The big beautiful bill cuts taxes while keeping spending on an increasingly unsustainable trajectory.”
Shortly after voting, Spartz posted that the budget resolution’s instructions are “setting us up for the largest deficit increase in the history of our Republic, & opening up a ‘pandora’s box’ by changing accounting rules to hide it.” She said she could not, in “good conscience,” approve the measure.
Group rallies for ‘tax justice.’ Thursday afternoon, several Democrat lawmakers spoke at a rally held near the Capitol building. The rally was organized by Fair Share America, a nonprofit that self-identifies as a “multistate initiative focused on building long-term civic engagement and political power to deliver lasting tax justice.”
The event served to “demand that Congress stand with working families instead of billionaires and big corporations,” according to a press release. Participants opposed President Trump’s tax policy agenda, chiefly his promised extensions to TCJA provisions benefiting the wealthy at the expense of cuts to other federal programs like Medicare and Medicaid.
Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, began his remarks at the rally in saying, “We’re going to keep it real simple: no bailouts for billionaires.”
Wyden blamed Republicans for moving funds meant to help “people who are hungry” or “need a roof over their head” towards offsetting the cost of tax cuts for high-income taxpayers. “Billionaires are doing just fine right now,” the top Democrat on the Senate’s taxwriting body said, because they are able to avoid taxes through a strategy he has coined “buy, borrow, die.”
Senator Jeff Merkley, also an Oregon Democrat, claimed that Republican tax breaks would incur “$7 trillion of new debt” over 10 years, approximately double the previously expected amount. Merkley, the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, said Republicans are looking to extend TCJA provisions beyond a 10-year window. He cited a Congressional Budget Office report released the same day illustrating a possible $52 trillion budget hit over 30 years.
The CBO also predicted “this additional debt will increase the interest rates, meaning that ordinary families will have to pay more” for home and auto loans, said Merkley. Consequently, the economy will “shrink,” he added.
Representative Brendan Boyle (D-PA), the ranking member of the House Budget Committee, said Republicans “will do absolutely anything and everything to deliver these tax cuts to those who need it the least, while taking away from those who need… the help the most, and who can afford to lose these programs the least.”
Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) later commented that the minority party needs to continue putting pressure on their GOP counterparts. “[W]e can be a constant presence — not just here in Washington, but back in their states,” said Murphy.
“If they won’t meet with you, go find them,” Murphy encouraged attendees. “Show up to their offices, show up to their public events” and “demand that they answer to you why they are putting the billionaires first.”
Senate Democrats weigh in. Meanwhile, 46 Senators signed onto an April 10 letter to the public warning that Republicans’ tax reform plan would be paid for by “gutting” health care.
Led by Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and the ranking members of the Senate Finance; Budget; and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committees, the letter comes as Republicans coalesce around a tax cut framework conditioned on $880 billion in spending cuts from the House committee overseeing Medicare and Medicaid.
With the Republican promise not to touch Medicare, Medicaid will inevitably see huge impacts, the lawmakers say. The cuts will “force state governments to restrict who can get coverage and reduce what benefits they cover, things like home-based care and behavioral health services,” they write.
But it’s not just Medicaid beneficiaries who would be affected, the Senate Democrats say in their letter. They contend cuts to that program will also “shutter hospitals, doctors’ offices, and nursing homes.”
In addition, the over 24 million Americans who are insured via the Affordable Care Act Marketplace will risk losing coverage, according to the lawmakers. Over 90% of Marketplace enrollees receive premium tax credits — and cutting those credits could result in 3.8 million people per year losing coverage, they add.
“Someone is being lied to,” Wyden said in a post during Thursday’s vote. “Senate Republicans passed the budget resolution on a promise of fewer cuts to Medicaid. House Republicans are set to pass it on a promise of deep cuts to the tune of $1.5 trillion dollars. Both things cannot be true.”
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