Super Committee

Why The Super Committee's New Tax Expert Could Be Key To Its Success

Brian Beutler | August 31, 2011, 6:10AM

Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX)

It's a mistake to read much into the fact that the Super Committee picked a staff director, or that he's a long-serving Republican aide. There's a temptation to read deeply into these developments, but ultimately the 12 members of the Super Committee will either reach an accommodation or they will not, and that much is up to them.

On that score, it is interesting that the staff director, Democrat or Republican, has extensive knowledge of the tax code.

This goes back to the final hours of the debt limit deal. The Super Committee will draft legislation that CBO will score relative to current law. That means CBO will score whatever they produce as if expiration of ALL the Bush tax cuts expire at the end of 2012. Want to make Bush's lower-income and middle-class tax cuts permanent, and let the top bracket cuts expire? No can do. That scores as a big tax CUT -- and thus counts against the committee's goal of reducing the deficit by $1.5 trillion over 10 years.

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Medicare

Paul Ryan To Dems: Show Us Your Budget...No, The Other One!

Brian Beutler | August 3, 2011, 12:12PM

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)

Before yesterday, Republicans on Capitol Hill liked to feign anger about Senate Democrats' failure to pass a budget in over two years.

Now that the debt limit deal is done -- and it's essentially a 10-year budget, with the force of law -- Republicans are...still attacking Democrats for...not passing a budget!

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