From our Budget Breakdown series highlighting problems in fiscal policy to inform the 2025 tax and budget debate.
For months, Republican leaders have sought to direct the official scorekeepers at the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to score their upcoming tax and spending bill against a “current policy” baseline. Unlike the standard “current law” baseline — which would force Republicans to grapple with the roughly $4.6 trillion that extending expiring tax cuts would add to the national debt over the next decade — a current policy baseline would make such legislation appear free. Senate Republicans had planned to make their case before the chamber’s parliamentarian to allow its use in the budget reconciliation process, which has strict rules about how much legislation can add to deficits. But late last week, Republicans abruptly dropped this plan, likely to avoid a negative ruling that derailed their efforts.
Instead, they are now asserting an even broader power: claiming that the Senate Budget Committee Chairman has the final say in determining a legislation’s costs. Doing so would allow them to ignore the official, nonpartisan score provided by the CBO and simply fabricate their own budgetary score. Moreover, Senate Republicans are asserting that they can do this whether or not the parliamentarian has a chance to determine if such a move is permissible under Senate rules — effectively a “nuclear option” that would fundamentally reshape how the Senate works.
Last week, PPI joined a dozen bipartisan budget experts — including four former Senate GOP staffers — to warn of the irreparable damage that this move would have on budget enforcement. The budget process depends on a credible and reliable accounting of a bill’s fiscal impact. If lawmakers can simply choose what counts as a cost and what doesn’t, this effectively nullifies all existing procedural mechanisms to enforce budget constraints. For example, budget rules currently prevent any bill passed using the filibuster-proof reconciliation process from adding to the deficit beyond the initial 10-year window. But this prohibition is one of many rules that becomes impossible to actually enforce if the chair can simply declare that a bill costs nothing and thus complies with them.
Unfortunately, Senate Republicans are proceeding full-steam ahead despite the irreparable damage it would do to both their institution and the federal budget. And although a handful of self-proclaimed fiscal hawks in the House have expressed opposition to such costly shenanigans in the past, they ultimately folded and offered their approval by rubber-stamping the Senate’s budget resolution earlier today. If Republicans successfully pursue this plan to completion, they will be responsible not only for adding up to $5.8 trillion to the debt in the most expensive budget reconciliation bill ever passed but also for the tens of trillions of dollars they will open the door for future Congresses to add — all while pretending it costs nothing.
Chinese imports to the United States, which make up nearly 17% of all U.S. imports, are now subject to a 54% 104% 125% tariff. This is likely the highest effective tariff rate ever imposed on a major U.S. trading partner.
