Before you read further, please consider going back to read my summary of some of the most politically toxic components of House Democrats' so-called "Build Back Better" plan. All but one member of Speaker Pelosi's caucus – 220 in total – voted to pass the legislation, which adds hundreds of billions to deficits (the real number is likely far greater, for reasons explicated below), will likely exacerbate inflationary pressures, raises taxes on tens of millions of middle-class Americans, offers big tax breaks to millionaires, and forces taxpayers to finance elective abortions. A recent Bloomberg analysis blows the whistle on the upside-down tax provisions, putting the lie to NBC's preposterous framing of the SALT deduction as a "middle class tax provision...that also benefits the wealthy." Reality check:
The House and Senate’s dueling proposals to expand the state and local tax deduction would both deliver large tax cuts to the wealthy, while failing to do much for middle-income households, according to new analysis from the Urban-Brooking Tax Policy Center. The left-leaning think tank compared the two plans to expand the politically important, but controversial, tax break aimed at helping people in high-tax states like New York, New Jersey and California...About 94% of the SALT benefits in the House’s $80,000 cap proposal would go to the top 20% of earners -- or those earning about $175,000 or more.
Tax cuts for the rich, financed by tax hikes on the middle class. That's the lie Democrats told about Republicans' across the board tax cuts in 2017. It's also the truth about what Democrats have literally voted to pass in the House of Representatives. In my Monday piece, I quoted a liberal economist warning that his party's math – and even the ugly Congressional Budget Office "score" that Democrats did their best to manipulate – rely on "budget gimmicks" explicitly designed to hide the proposal's true cost. A new study from the Wharton School at Penn extrapolates the real price tag, and it's astronomical:
Here is updated estimate from the Penn Wharton Budget Model (PWBM) of the House reconciliation bill from last week. The updated model estimates that if all of the temporary provisions are made permanent, spending would instead total $4.6 trillion over the 10-year budget window.
— Senator John Cornyn (@JohnCornyn) November 22, 2021
So take the alleged "$1.75 trillion" figure, double it, then tack on an extra trillion. Time for CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation to calculate some new scores:
Manchin has previously criticized this strategy, calling it a "shell game." As Cornyn notes in his letter, outside groups have estimated that BBB's cost would be nearly $5t over 10 years if its programs were permanent.
— Andy Duehren (@aduehren) November 22, 2021
House Democrats explicitly rejected CBO's calculations in order to ram through their ludicrous, poison-pill-laden bill, and they declined a JCT score. Sen. Cornyn has now requested a fuller accounting from both organizations. Progressives may object, but here's their problem: They're nearly unanimously in favor of making the bill's "temporary" provisions permanent. They just don't want that math included because it would expose the insulting little game they're playing. Senior GOP aide JP Freire asks an entirely reasonable question: "Which Democrats want these to be only temporary?" By all means, step right up, Democrats. If you want to tell voters that your plan is "affordable" and "paid for" (CBO has already debunked the latter), you should be willing to either (a) pledge to support the expiration of these items along your bill's schedule, or (b) agree to abide by a full and complete score, accounting for the extensions you support.
The truth is that most Democrats will tout the lower number, knowing full well that it's fake, with every intention of endlessly renewing spending into oblivion. I'll leave you with the painful reminder that none of this would be happening if tens of thousands of Republican voters hadn't allowed themselves to become convinced that their votes didn't matter in Georgia this January, allowing Democrats to sweep a pair of Senate races. All of this garbage would be dead on arrival in the Senate. But the political winds are blowing in a rightward direction. If Republicans nominate palatable candidates and right-leaning voters turn out en masse (as they did in Virginia), Democrats could very well lose both chambers in less than a year:
GOP looks favored to take back the Senate (about 3-in-4 times). Based on data back to 06, microanalysis tends to underestimate waves at this point. Given the generic ballot, a majority of seats rated as tossups are likely to be won by the GOP next year. https://t.co/poDPxVewyZ
— (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) November 21, 2021