No joke

26 June 2017 By Gina Chon Follow @GinaChon

The mantra used to defer the reckoning on dodgy loans has come to Congress. Some lawmakers want to extend the 10-year budget horizon to at least 20 years. That would allow bigger tax cuts and deficits in the near term, but would be as irresponsible as the worst of Wall Street.

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Some Republicans in the U.S. Congress are pushing for an extension of the traditional 10-year budget-planning window to a period of 20 or 25 years. Such a move would be linked to tax-reform legislation that could then be finalized in a budget reconciliation process, which allows for passage of a bill by only a majority of the 100 senators instead of the 60 votes that would be needed under other circumstances. The GOP has 52 senators.

“If you say we'll just have it (tax cuts) expire at the end of 10 years, that's not enough certainty for business to make the kind of decisions we want them to make in response to a better tax code,” Republican Senator Pat Toomey said on June 22.

Budget reconciliation bills also must adhere to the 1985 Byrd Rule, named after Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, who died in 2010. Under the rule, legislation can’t cause “an increase in the deficit in any year outside the budget window,” which is usually 10 years. There is no statute defining how long the budget window should be, however. A 10-year budget period has largely been used by Congress since 2000.

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