The Senate's $1.5 trillion tax cut is not what it seems

Sen. Bob Corker said Monday he has no intention of allowing the Republican tax reform plan to add to federal deficits, amid reports he brokered a deal to cut $1.5 trillion in taxes over the next decade.

Instead, the Tennessee Republican said, the mysteriously detail-free deal he announced last week with fellow Budget Committee member Pat Toomey was meant to give "headroom parliamentarian-wise" for GOP senators to negotiate a tax bill within the constraints imposed by the Senate's arcane procedural rules.

"There will be numbers of us, I would think, that would not want to vote for something that they viewed as going to increase the deficit," said Corker, a self-styled fiscal conservative.

The key to the deal, according to tax observers, was that Corker found a way to work with Toomey, an advocate of aggressive supply-side tax cuts, to proceed with the budget resolution. The deal doesn't necessarily call for slashing federal revenues. Instead, it allows Republicans to try to work out a deal that might lose money in the conventional accounting of government budgeting, but that could end up paying for itself when faster economic growth is taken into account.

Writing a budget resolution is the first step toward passing tax legislation, because it unlocks the reconciliation tool that lets a bill advance and pass in the Senate with just 51 votes, allowing Republicans to bypass the filibuster to send legislation to President Trump's desk.