A landmark tax bill passed during the presidency of Donald Trump should be discarded rather than renewed as it nears its expiration date, says a fiscal study.
Published by the Washington-based Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, the study contends that renewing Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act could cost the country $3.3 trillion over the course of the next decade.
That act, largely regarded as a signal legislative victory for the Trump administration, reduced tax rates for businesses and individuals and increased the standard deduction and family tax credits.
The bill has been regarded by many policy analysts as the most significant tax legislation since passage of the Tax Reform Act, which was signed into law by President Reagan in 1986.
But the Responsible Federal Budget study contends that if Congress is considering an extension of the Trump legislation, whose shelf life ends on the last day of 2025, it should carefully weigh what provisions of the bill will be extended, modified, or allowed to simply expire and become history.
The committee study says the most burdensome part of the Trump legislation comes with the reduced income rates, which could result in a loss of $2.6 trillion in revenue to the nation’s coffers in coming years.
That provision, along with several others in the original Trump bill, continues the study, would contribute to a significant worsening of the national debt.
For that reason, lawmakers “should view 2025 as an opportunity to re-evaluate what worked and what did not,” with the Trump bill.
In so doing, contends the study, members of Congress should not extend any part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act “without enough offsets to ensure they reduce, or at least don’t add to, the national debt.”
Moves to extend the Trump legislation are regarded as certain during the next two years, but will almost be significantly impacted by which party takes control of Congress after the 2024 election.
By Garry Boulard
