In a move that has drawn sharp criticism from economists and Democratic lawmakers, Senate Republicans are preparing to bypass the traditional budgetary rules of the Senate to make President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts permanent—potentially adding trillions of dollars to the national debt without acknowledging the cost. The maneuver involves ignoring the Senate parliamentarian’s authority, a step Democrats notably refused to take in 2021 when attempting to raise the federal minimum wage.
The plan centers on extending the tax cuts enacted under the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which are set to expire at the end of 2025. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), making those tax breaks permanent would cost an estimated $4.6 trillion over a decade. Rather than offsetting that cost with spending reductions or revenue increases, Republicans are pursuing a new tactic: redefining how legislation is scored by the CBO.
“Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) backed the argument, laid out by Graham, that Republicans don’t need the Senate parliamentarian to bless the current policy approach during Tuesday’s Senate GOP lunch,” Axios reported. “Graham is expected to release the language of the budget resolution as soon as Tuesday, according to GOP Whip John Barrasso (R-Wyo.).”
At the heart of the plan is the replacement of the long-established “current law” baseline with a “current policy” baseline. Under this method, the CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) would be forced to assume that temporary tax cuts—such as those enacted in 2017—are already permanent. This accounting shift would allow Republicans to claim that extending them has no fiscal impact, circumventing the need to pay for them under reconciliation rules.
A trio of experts at the Center for American Progress, including former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, described the move as unprecedented. “The majority is attempting to force the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) to say the fiscal impact is instead zero dollars by using a ‘current policy’ baseline rather than the ‘current law’ baseline that is defined in statute,” they wrote. “This approach is unprecedented in the 50 years since the CBO was formed and Congress acted within the current budget framework.”
They warned that the strategy would destroy any fiscal discipline in Congress. “Whether one believes the United States should be cutting taxes or increasing spending, there should be no question that forcing the CBO and JCT to pretend that policies have no fiscal impact would allow Congress to make major tax and spending decisions with no arithmetic recognition of the cost,” the report stated. “This would be the epitome of fiscal irresponsibility. Congress needs to responsibly bring down deficits. Establishing principles that make it possible to incur huge costs without recognizing them would be an egregious and dangerous error.”
Democrats have sounded the alarm over the plan, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) calling it a breakdown of Senate norms. “That would be going nuclear,” Schumer said. “And it shows that Republicans are so hell-bent on giving these tax breaks to the billionaires that they’re willing to break any rules, norms, and things they promised they wouldn’t do.”
The controversy is further inflamed by the stark contrast to 2021, when Democrats accepted a ruling from the parliamentarian that prevented them from including a minimum wage increase in their budget reconciliation package. Despite pressure from progressives, Senate leadership refused to override the decision.
“They found a way around the parliamentarian. They found a way around the rules of the Senate. They found a way around the ideals of reconciliation,” said Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), who took to the Senate floor for a record-breaking speech protesting the GOP’s maneuver. “They are deciding that the way we’re gonna do this is break the Senate and make up our own rules. This is how they’re gonna get a bill through that gives trillions [of] dollars of tax cuts to the wealthiest in our country who are doing very well.”
Booker continued, “You don’t need tax cuts, especially not that are gonna be given to you on the backs of the poor, on the backs of our elders, on the backs of our children, on the backs of expectant mothers, on the backs of my mom’s, your mom’s Social Security.”
Booker’s speech, which began Monday night and extended into Tuesday, set a new record for the longest continuous Senate floor speech in history. As he spoke, he read in full a report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities titled House Republican Budget’s $4.5 Trillion Tax Cut Doubles Down on Costly Failures of 2017 Tax Law, as well as a New York Times article outlining the GOP’s arcane budget strategy.
Behind closed doors, Senate Republicans are reportedly still debating how far they are willing to go. Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough had been expected to meet with both parties to rule on whether the GOP could proceed with their reinterpretation of the baseline. However, the meeting was canceled, according to a Democratic Senate source.
When asked whether Republicans would accept the parliamentarian’s ruling, Thune deflected. “We are in conversations, as you know, with the parliamentarian about the best way to get a budget reconciliation we’re trying to accomplish across the finish line,” he said. “We think the law is very clear. And ultimately, the Budget Committee chairman makes that determination.”
That chairman, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), holds the power to approve the scoring change in the budget resolution. A spokesperson for Senate Budget Committee Democrats called the approach “alarming” and warned of its consequences. “Republicans believe they don’t need to defend their effort to hide the true cost of their multitrillion-dollar tax giveaways that will add trillions to the national debt while gutting programs hard-working families rely on,” the spokesperson said. “Current policy baseline is budget fraud” and “upends decades of precedent.”
The broader implications are significant. By eliminating the need to offset trillions in tax cuts, Republicans are laying the groundwork for sweeping reductions in social safety net programs to manage the resulting deficits. Programs that could face cuts include Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, SNAP, and other essential services.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) admitted the strategy may be necessary to avoid negotiating with Democrats. “If we’re going to be more constrained, then you have to look at the core of what we need to get done, versus nice-to-haves that may just be required to take more time, maybe get Democrat support for it,” Tillis said.
With Senate Republicans preparing to introduce their budget resolution as early as this week, the debate marks a pivotal moment for fiscal transparency and the future of social equity. While Democrats have been criticized for lacking forceful opposition to Republican tactics in the past, the current battle over the budget may prove to be a defining test of the Senate’s institutional integrity and the direction of economic policy in the coming years.
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