The Great Budget Baseline Con
That's the official Congressional Budget Office 'score' of the bill, but it's only true if you assume that Congress was going to tolerate a $4.5 trillion tax increase. That would be the result if the 2017 tax reform expired at the end of this year, as most of the individual tax provisions are scheduled to do.
Congress was never going to allow that. Even Democrats support extending most of the 2017 individual cuts except the lower 37% top marginal rate. Senate Republicans correctly argue that the bill's cost should be measured against a more realistic baseline, which assumes that existing tax rates and policy continue.
In any rational world, changes in the law would be scored against current policy. But in Washington they are scored against CBO's current-law 'baseline,' which assumes that the 2017 tax cuts will expire. Voila, $3.3 trillion in new deficits over 10 years.
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