Contrary to Speaker Boehner’s Claim, Budget Deal’s “Supercommittee” Can Consider Revenue Increases

[ProSense]

Contrary to Speaker Boehner’s Claim, Budget Deal’s “Supercommittee” Can Consider Revenue Increases

By James R. Horney

Speaker of the House John Boehner erroneously claims that the legislation implementing the new debt limit agreement does not allow the joint congressional committee it establishes to propose revenue increases to help reduce deficits. The legislation does no such thing. Rather, it is the speaker's adamant opposition to considering revenue increases — even the elimination of wasteful tax loopholes — as part of a deficit-reduction package that may prevent a balanced approach to reducing the deficit through a mix of program cuts and revenue increases.

The agreement calls for immediate enactment of legislation<1> that would create a two-step process to increase the debt limit and reduce the deficit.

• First, the legislation allows the President to increase the debt limit by up to $900 billion ($400 billion immediately, with an additional increase of $500 billion unless Congress enacts a joint resolution disapproving that increase) and reduces the deficit by about $1 trillion over ten years by establishing caps through 2021 on annual discretionary appropriations.
  
  
• Second, the legislation establishes a Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction that is supposed to report legislation by the end of this year that would reduce the deficit by at least an additional $1.5 trillion over ten years and would allow the President to further increase the debt limit by up to $1.5 trillion (unless Congress enacts a joint resolution of disapproval). If Congress fails to enact the full $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction, this further increase in the debt limit could be no more than $1.2 trillion, and automatic, across-the-board cuts will take place starting in January 2013 to reduce spending by $1.2 trillion.<2>

<...>

Documents that Speaker Boehner circulated to his caucus yesterday claim that the legislation implementing the new debt limit agreement "requires baseline to be current law, effectively making it impossible for Joint Committee to increase taxes."

This claim is wrong, for two reasons. First, many tax proposals would raise revenues relative even to a current-law baseline. For instance, the President's proposals to eliminate preferential treatment of expenses for corporate jets and tax breaks for oil and gas companies would reduce the deficit relative to a current-law or "plausible" baseline. Most such "tax expenditures" are permanent and so are the same under current law and under a "plausible" baseline; reducing them would raise revenues and is clearly allowed under the proposed agreement.

Second, while it is true that tax reform of the sort that Bowles-Simpson, Rivlin-Domenici, and the Gang of Six proposed would not reduce the deficit relative to a current-law baseline, nothing in the debt limit legislation requires the use of a current-law baseline to determine how much the Joint Committee proposal reduces the deficit. Section 401(b)(3)(B)(i)(I) of the bill requires the Joint Committee's report to contain CBO's estimate of the savings that the proposal would produce. CBO's cost estimates typically reflect changes from its current-law baseline, but CBO on occasion produces estimates relative to alternative baselines if the House or Senate Budget Committees or leadership indicate that such estimates are necessary to help them enforce budget rules or targets.

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Did Boehner trick his caucus into voting for the deal?

[PVnRT]

1. They "can" but they probably won't

McShitheel and Bonehead have already said they will be staffing their half of the committee with anti-taxers, and given Reid's comments about selecting people who will seek "compromise," it's likely there will be just enough conservadems on the committee to scuttle any tax increases. Yeah, they "could" do it, but it won't happen.

[FSogol]

2. Then, call your Reps and Senators and tell them you want to see reveune increases.

Better yet, write them and honest-to-Gawd letter with a 1st class stamp. Email, tweets, and phone calls are too easily ignored. Fill their offices with letters.

[PVnRT]

5. Yeah, that'll work

McDipshit is one of my senators and Randroid Paul the other. I'm sure they'll give careful consideration to the idea of revenue increases.

[FSogol]

6. Then, I guess your only recourse is to whine on the net.

:facepalm:

[PVnRT]

9. LOL - you naive people are so funny

You realize politics isn't like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, right?

[FSogol]

3. Doubt Boehner is cleaver enough to trick anyone. He's basically a lazy guy serving too many masters

He has to keep business/lobbyist interests happy so they keep pouring him gin and getting him tee times. Then he has to keep radicals in his party happy too. Impossible to do especially with his own lazy nature. He takes Mondays and Fridays off and only works half days on Tues and Thursdays.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

4. The Only Thing Worse Than Budget Cuts Is Budget Cuts And Tax Increases

Let's do everything we can to take money out of this economy.

[LiberalFighter]

7. No he didn't trick them.

He bamboozled them with his powerpoint of 7 pages with text at 66 point size.

[alc]

8. they can't use eliminating Bush cuts or AMT

Those are already "planned" to go into effect so they won't be about to count the value towards their goals. So any revenue increases need to be in addition to those.

And whatever they propose will need to pass the house. You can count on the tea party including those (Bush cuts and AMT) when they yell about the unfair amount of tax increases proposed. And count on the house not passing the recommendations with the revenue increase. So the default cuts will be made if revenue increases are included.

I think the repubs are willing to accept the minor defense cuts over the next 2 years (< $10 billion out of $700 billion each year) and assume they can "fix" the cuts before any significant cuts happen. So they will be glad to take the default cuts unless the dems give them a real good deal.