With congressional Democrats trying to resolve differences on the war supplemental, the Blue Dog Coalition has yet to crack on its demand that any new entitlement spending be offset under pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) rules. Today the Concord Coalition weighed in with a letter from executive director Robert L. Bixby urging the Blue Dogs to set a positive example for fiscal responsibility. “To be blunt, paygo is under assault,” Bixby wrote. “Congress has waived paygo for economic stimulus legislation and a one-year Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) ‘patch.’ These waivers alone have added …
The Senate budget resolution, which will be voted on later this week, is quite similar to the House budget resolution, which the Heritage Foundation analyzed yesterday. Heritage Foundation Senior Policy Analyst Brian Riedl notes: “While the House budget would raise taxes by $1.265 trillion over five years, and $3.911 trillion over the decade, the Senate tax hikes come to $1.207 trillion and $3.853 trillion, respectively. The Senate’s tax hike of $3,086 per household annually is just below the House’s $3,135 per household tax increase.” Both resolutions would allow all the …
A Wall Street Journal editorial today details how liberals in Congress have cooked the books to keep spending increases exempt from paygo rules, but still applies them to tax cuts: As it happens, the farm bill also exposes the real purpose of paygo — to make spending easier but tax-cutting harder. The farm bill is scheduled to expire later this month and the cost of extending it over 10 years is $597 billion. But does paygo require offsetting all the cost of the farm bill? Heavens no. The cost of …
