While they’re figuring out how to proceed themselves, Democrats are giddy about a damning new report: The tax cut plan proposed by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (and backed by the vast majority of the GOP) to make all of the Bush tax cuts permanent will add about $4 trillion to the deficit over 10 years.
That’s more than four times the cost of the deficit-financed stimulus bill, which Republicans cite as evidence of Democrats’ fiscal recklessness.
This is nothing new, per se.
As TPM reported last month, both the Democratic and the Republican plans for addressing the Bush tax cuts will add trillions to deficits relative to current law — i.e., letting all the tax cuts expire. But the Republican plan, or an approximation of it, creates hundreds of billions of dollars more debt than the Democratic plan. Either way, it’s a recipe for future tax hikes, drastic spending cuts, or fiscal calamity.
But amid the current political melee, Democrats are perfectly pleased to focus on the GOP plan alone. Expect them to make noise about this later today.
Brian Beutler
Brian Beutler is TPM's senior congressional reporter. Since 2009, he's led coverage of health care reform, Wall Street reform, taxes, the GOP budget, the government shutdown fight, and the debt limit fight. He can be reached at brian@talkingpointsmemo.com.
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