New GOP House Rules Pave The Way For More Tax Cuts, Deficits [View All]

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http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/12/gop-house-rules-pave-the-way-for-more-bush-tax-cuts.php?ref=fpblg

In 2007, just weeks after Republicans lost control of the House and Senate and six years after the first passel of Bush tax cuts were signed into law, Democrats made a key change to the budget rules to prevent that episode from repeating itself.

Republicans had used the budget reconciliation process -- immune from a filibuster -- to pass the cuts and explode the deficit: two things the reconciliation process was never meant to allow. To get away with it, Republicans were forced to include a 10-year sunset in package -- planting the seeds for the tax cut fight we just saw on Capitol Hill. After Dems wrested control of Congress, they banned the reconciliation loopholes used by the GOP altogether.

But as they return to power in the House of Representatives, Republicans are taking steps to unravel those changes.

(snip)
The new rules would stand the reconciliation process on its head, by allowing the House to use reconciliation to push through bills that greatly increase deficits as long as the deficit increases result from tax cuts, while barring the use of reconciliation in the House for legislation that reduces the deficit if that legislation contains a net increase in spending (no matter how small) that is more than offset by revenue-raising provisions.