I spoke to Benjamin Guggenheim and Meredith Lee Hill for POLITICO on GOP tax cuts and budget reconciliation.
The number that lawmakers had tentatively settled on last Thursday — around $4.7 trillion — would make it virtually impossible to implement anything above an extension of the expiring tax cuts. House Republicans agreed during their White House meeting last week that they would permanently extend the 2017 tax cuts, which are estimated by Congress’ official accountants as costing $4.6 trillion.
The $4.7 trillion figure “is an implicit acknowledgement that something will have to give,” said Liam Donovan, a Republican strategist, in an interview.
“[T]here will absolutely have to be trade-offs. You simply can’t fit it all into that,” Donovan said.