(Photo: Flickr/ Takver)
Stung by their inability to repeal and replace ObamaCare, Republicans in Washington have gleefully turned their attention to taxes and the budget. While touting “tax reform,” Senate Republicans have just released a budget outline that makes a mockery of any real reform of the tax code.
Instead of closing loopholes to pay for the rate reductions they propose (the true test of real tax reform), the draft budget resolution proposes to cut tax revenues by $1.5 trillion (with a “T”) over the next 10 years — and pay for it by adding to the deficit, rather than ending many of the numerous tax breaks for the wealthy built into the current tax code.
The Senate budget resolution calls for $1.5 trillion in revenue reduction, but even that may turn out to be on the low side of what Republicans have in mind. The tax cut proposal recently outlined by the White House will cost $2.6 trillion over the next 10 years, the non-partisan Tax Policy Center estimates.