House GOP banking chairman waves off tax cut deficit concerns, pivots to entitlement reform

Rep. Jeb Hensarling pushes entitlement reform
(Image credit: Screenshot/Bloomberg)

On Thursday, the congressional tax scorekeepers at the Joint Committee on Taxation projected that the Senate Republican tax plan would add $1 trillion to the federal deficit, using "dynamic scoring" that accounts for economic growth. "This is the standard by which the GOP has insisted that fiscal legislation should be judged" for 40 years now, notes New York Times business reporter Binyamin Appelbaum‏. It wasn't the result deficit-wary Republicans wanted, and it led to an overnight rewrite of the tax plan — that plus a parliamentary disqualification of a proposed "trigger" to raise taxes if the $1.63 trillion in tax cuts don't pay for themselves.

Earlier Thursday, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) dismissed the "trigger" idea. "The bottom line is, we'll be able to fill any deficit hole with additional revenues, and we basically saw the same during the Reagan tax cuts, frankly the Kennedy tax cut, you can even go all the way back to the Coolidge tax cut," he told Bloomberg's Kevin Cirilli. "We will be able to raise more revenues, and if not, as a Republican, the answer would be less spending, not more taxes."

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Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.