GOP tax bill cost estimate keeps rising

Source: Raw Story

On paper, the tax package hammered out Friday carries a price tag of a net $1.5 trillion over 10 years. In reality, the cost in the form of federal deficits is virtually certain to be substantially higher.

That's because of a bit of fiscal gamesmanship. Republicans agreed the tax rewrite could add up to $1.5 trillion in debt over 10 years. But to stay within that limit and add nothing to deficits beyond the decade, as a Senate budget rule requires, they put expiration dates of 2025 or earlier on almost all of the tax changes for individual taxpayers — but hardly any for corporations. The temporary breaks include the doubling of standard deductions and increases in the child tax credit.

But Republicans, including Trump, freely say that future Congresses will extend many of those tax cuts. Political pressure undoubtedly will be heavy to do so, though higher debt could inhibit future lawmakers. Nonetheless, Trump predicted Saturday that the tax cuts not only will be extended but sweetened.

"Whoever the administration is years from now, they will make it, and maybe even make it more generous if we can get the economy like it should be," he told reporters as he left for Camp David, Md.

Read more: https://www.rawstory.com/2017/12/gop-tax-bill-cost-estimate-keeps-rising/

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Bottom line: The idea is for the people to get used to the tax cuts as a status quo, therefore repealing them becomes a huge political lift. In other words, the next Democratic President will have to spend all his or her political capital simply to get back to where we are now.