River Bend Times

Senate Budget Committee Ranking Member Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., along with Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., House Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Richard E. Neal, D-Mass., and House Budget Committee Ranking Member Brendan F. Boyle, D-Pa., have raised concerns about a new cost estimate for the Republican proposal to extend the 2017 tax law enacted during Trump's presidency. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, the extension would amount to $5.5 trillion over the next decade, including interest, or $4.6 trillion without interest.

"The Republican handouts to billionaires and corporations will come at a staggering cost, and it’s unconscionable that their plan to pay for those handouts includes kicking millions of Americans off their health insurance, hiking the cost of living with tariffs, and driving up child hunger. Even after making painful cuts that will inflict hardship on typical American families, Republicans will still risk sending us into a catastrophic debt spiral that does permanent harm to our economy. What Republicans are trying to jam through Congress right now is a level of economic recklessness we’ve never seen before."

This follows earlier calculations estimating the expense of prolonging the Trump tax regulation to be $4.6 trillion, including interest, and $4 trillion without it.

Moreover, the budget resolution that Senate Republicans introduced this week proposes an extra $1.5 trillion in tax breaks designed by the Finance Committee Republicans alongside the Trump administration. This increases the 10-year cost projection of the Republican tax initiative to over $7 trillion, primarily benefiting the wealthy and corporations.