On the recordMarch 25, 2025
This one is going to be a little thick, so put on your economics hat, and let's have a ride here. On Friday, the Congressional Budget Office responded to a request I made in my capacity as chairman of the Joint Economic Committee. I was trying to get an answer to whether the economists' projections from the Joint Economic Committee are correct. You have to understand that there is actually a weird little battle going on here between the Senate and those of us in the House and those of us on Ways and Means. A number of our brothers and sisters over in the house of lords have decided that we have current tax policy from the 2017 TCJA, the tax reform, which I was on the committee and was one of the people who helped author that, but they expire at the end of this year. They want to play this game and say that we are just going to pretend that there is no cost, that the law is not the law, that the policy is the law. This is when you hear people say, current policy baseline, just do it. We have been trying to do the math. The Congressional Budget Office, a couple of months ago, actually did a projection saying that if we want to maximize economic growth over the next 10 years, what you do is extend those tax cuts but pay for them. The basic idea is that by paying for them, you don't have government gobbling up the capital stack that is used to finance growth, to finance business, to finance when you want to buy a truck or a new home or your business wants to expand.…
