Republicans Working Hard to Make Tax Bill Even Stupider

Alex Edelman/CNP via ZUMA

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

From CNBC:

Sen. Bob Corker said Tuesday a “backstop” to curb future budget deficits could help to win his crucial vote for the GOP tax bill. The Tennessee Republican and others are seeking the protection in case the nearly $1.5 trillion in proposed tax cuts do not meet the GOP’s expectations for sparking economic growth. The “trigger” described by Corker would raise taxes if the plan does not boost the U.S. economy enough.

“What several of us have asked for is a backstop or trigger in that event we don’t meet the projections that have been laid out — since we’re not going to score it — that we have a backstop. And so that’s what we’ve been working on throughout the weekend and feverishly today,” Corker told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

The Senate could just wait to score the bill, of course. That would certainly be the easiest option. The thing is, everyone knows what a CBO score would show: even with dynamic effects taken into account, the Republican tax bill blows up the deficit big time.

So instead of dealing with that certainty, Republicans are apparently trying desperately to whomp up some kind of “trigger” language in record time. I’ll toss out three options for how this could turn out:

  1. The trigger will be mostly for show and will have little actual power.
  2. The trigger will be effective, which means that taxes will go up when the economy is slow and down when the economy is booming.
  3. The trigger will be a Rube Goldberg concoction and no one actually knows what it will do.

Mitch McConnell, of course, would prefer #1. Corker, presumably, prefers #2 even though it makes no sense. And in the end, I suppose we’re most likely to get #3.

Fact:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2022 demands.

payment methods

Fact:

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2022 demands.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate