Overnight Finance: Scorekeeper says House tax bill won’t pay for itself | Fight over Treasury’s analysis of tax plan | GOP worries about tax bill’s unpopularity | What’s ahead in year end spending fight

Congressional scorekeeper: House passed tax bill wouldn’t pay for itself: The tax bill House Republicans passed last month wouldn’t produce enough revenue from economic growth to pay for itself, Congress’s tax scorekeeper said in a 12-page report released Monday.

The economic growth resulting from the bill would lower the measure’s revenue loss by more than $400 billion over 10 years. However, the bill would still cost about $1 trillion over a decade, even after accounting for those revenues, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT).

The report comes as House and Senate Republicans work to resolve the differences between their two tax bills and produce a final piece of legislation that they can get to President Trump’s desk by the end of the year.

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House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas) said Monday that he thinks the analysis reflects the fact that JCT “historically is a very conservative estimator of growth.”

He said that some analyses have found that the bill would produce more economic growth than JCT predicts, while others have found that the bill would produce less growth.

JCT previously estimated that the Senate bill as approved by the Finance Committee would also add about $1 trillion to the deficit after accounting for economic growth. Republicans were critical of that analysis, arguing that the group’s growth estimate was low. http://bit.ly/2BeeXJo

 

Earlier Monday… Treasury said Trump’s economic policies would pay for tax cuts: The Treasury Department on Monday argued in a one-page analysis that the economic growth produced by Trump administration policies would increase tax revenue by about $1.8 trillion over 10 years, enough to pay for tax-cut legislation.

“The Administration has been focused on tax reform and broader economic policies to stimulate growth, which will generate significant long-term revenue for the government,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement.

The department’s analysis assumes a 2.9-percent growth rate, which was the rate projected by Trump’s fiscal 2018 budget. The department compared that rate to previous projections of 2.2 percent growth in gross domestic product.

The Treasury Department said that it expects half of the 0.7-percentage point increase in the growth rate to come from changes to the corporate tax code, while the other half would come from tax changes for individuals and pass-through businesses as well as from regulatory reform, infrastructure investment and welfare reform. Because tax cut legislation is expected to add $1.5 trillion to the deficit, the Treasury is predicting Trump’s economic agenda will ultimately increase revenue on net over 10 years by $300 billion. http://bit.ly/2AbRxAE.

 

But Dems blasted the analysis, with Warren calling it ‘made up numbers’: Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) targeted the Treasury Department’s analysis of the GOP tax plan in a tweetstorm Monday, saying officials “made up the numbers” to fit their claims.

Warren bashed the one-page analysis released earlier Monday, in which the department said that economic policies passed under President Trump would raise enough revenue to cover the tax cuts in the GOP bill, which directly contradicts several independent analyses, including one from the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) Monday evening.

The senator, who has been a fierce critic of the tax measure, claimed that the figures used in the analysis didn’t make sense.

She wrote that instead of using economic models, Treasury officials “just made up the numbers.” http://bit.ly/2AuQEYm

 

Trump to give tax speech Wednesday: President Trump will sell the GOP’s tax-cut plans to the public in a speech on Wednesday amid efforts from congressional Republicans to get legislation on his desk by Christmas.

“As we work with Congress to achieve historic tax cuts, the President plans to speak Wednesday to the American people on how tax reform will lead to a brighter future for them and their families,” White House deputy press secretary Lindsay Walters said in a statement Monday.

Axios reported that Trump’s speech will tax place at the Treasury Department, where the audience will consist mainly of young people and middle-class families: http://bit.ly/2Aa7iYP.

 

Happy Monday and welcome back to Overnight Finance. I’m Sylvan Lane, and here’s your nightly guide to everything affecting your bills, bank account and bottom line.

See something I missed? Let me know at slane@digital-stage.thehill.com or tweet me @SylvanLane. And if you like your newsletter, you can subscribe to it here: http://bit.ly/1NxxW2N.

 

On tap tomorrow

• House Financial Services Committee: Markup of 15 bills ranging from banking and mortgage regulations to human trafficking, 10 a.m.
• House Foreign Affairs Committee: Hearing on the future of NAFTA, 2 p.m.

 

Week ahead: Trump, lawmakers face end-of-year spending fight: Lawmakers returned to Washington on Monday with just 12 days to fund the government past a new Dec. 22 deadline.

Trump on Friday signed a stopgap spending bill to avoid a government shutdown and buy lawmakers two more weeks to negotiate a broader budget deal.

Trump signed the measure without fanfare, one day after Congress sent it to his desk.

Democrats and Republicans have been at an impasse over a long-term government funding deal.

The two parties have been unable to agree on spending levels. Republicans also want to boost defense spending, but Democrats want that matched by a hike in nondefense spending.

Democrats also want other measures tied to the bill, including a fix to aid young immigrants brought to the country illegally. Get up to speed here: http://bit.ly/2AeINKd.

 

Republicans fret over tax bill’s unpopularity: Republican lawmakers are concerned about how their tax bill is being viewed by the public and say they need to do a better job of selling it to middle-class and low-income voters.

A CBS News poll conducted last week found that 53 percent of people nationwide disapprove of the GOP tax bill and only 35 percent approve.

While support for the bill was strong among self-identified Republicans, according to the poll, 52 percent of independents and a whopping 84 percent of Democrats disapprove of the legislation.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) on Friday warned that the Republican Party cannot become identified with the “country club-big business image,” citing a famous speech Ronald Reagan gave in 1977 using those same words.

While Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) is touting the projection that a median family of four in his home state would receive an average tax cut of $2,000 from the bill, some lawmakers worry about people who won’t see any relief or who may even end up paying more.

The Hill’s Alexander Bolton and Naomi Jagoda report: http://bit.ly/2Adl3pH.

 

Poll: Majority doesn’t believe GOP bill will lower their taxes: A majority of Americans do not believe they will pay lower taxes after the Republican tax overhaul, a new poll published Sunday found.

According to the USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll, 53 percent of respondents do not think they will pay lower taxes, while 53 percent also believe the plan will not have a positive impact on the economy.

Only 31 percent think their taxes will go down as a result of the new legislation, the poll found. A majority of voters, 64 percent, said they think the wealthy will reap the most benefits from the overhaul. 

Nearly half of those polled, 48 percent, do not support the Republican plan, while 32 percent back the legislation.

A conference committee will try to hammer out the differences in the two bills, which have passed the House and the Senate, respectively. A final version signed by President Trump would deliver the president and Republicans a key legislative win after numerous failed attempts to pursue health-care legislation this year: http://bit.ly/2Aded3G.

Tax bill ‘frenzy’ leading to errors from exhausted staffers: Congressional negotiators are dealing with drafting errors in Republican tax-reform legislation often put in by exhausted staff as the party seeks to push through a final bill by Christmas, The Washington Post reported Monday.

The party’s stated goal of getting a tax bill passed and signed by President Trump by Christmas has led to a process that some told the newspaper has been rushed, leading to unexpected discoveries within the bill.

“The frenzy, and I would call it a frenzy, to get it done and have a Christmas present for America — number one, I think it’s unnecessary; it’s a self-imposed deadline, and number two, it makes the possibility for error much greater,” Steve Bell, a senior adviser at the Bipartisan Policy Center, told the newspaper: http://bit.ly/2AdtXU6.

 

Dems urge Labor chief to delay new rule on workers’ tips: House Democrats are calling on Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta to give the public more time to comment on a proposal to roll back the Obama-era rule that banned employers from pooling workers’ tips.

In a letter Monday, 46 Democrats including Rep. Bobby Scott (Va.), Keith Ellison (Minn.) and Mark Takano (Calif.) asked Acosta to extend the current 30-day comment period to 60 days.

The Labor Department issued a proposal earlier this month to change the Fair Labor Standards Act regulation and allow employers to pool the tips of workers who make the minimum wage and share them with non-tipped workers. 

The Democrats said the proposed rule would allow employers to pocket employee tips or redistribute them among employees, reversing the department’s more than 40-year position that tips are the property of the employee who earns them: http://bit.ly/2AdlHU9.

 

‘Moneytaker’ group stole millions from US, world banks: A newly detailed hacker group stole millions of dollars since May 2016 through international heists, including $8 million from 16 United States banks, according to a report released Monday by security firm Group IB. 

Group IB nicknamed the hackers “Moneytaker” after the name of the malware used in certain attacks. 

The Moneytaker group, according to the report, has picked mostly smaller, community banks as U.S. victims, stealing money by infiltrating the credit card processor. 

It cleared money from the U.S. banks by organizing fraudulent credit card transactions.

Group IB linked the 16 U.S. bank victims to two hacked Russian banks and a hacked United Kingdom software company by the use of the same hacking infrastructure and software tools: http://bit.ly/2Adua9Q.

 

From The Hill’s opinion pages

Congress moves one step closer to giving American taxpayers relief, by Andrew Wilford, associate policy analyst at the National Taxpayers Union Foundation

Don’t leave business in the lurch in tax reform deal, by Michael S. Dell, chairman and CEO of Dell Technologies

 

Write us with tips, suggestions and news: slane@digital-stage.thehill.com, vneedham@digital-stage.thehill.com, njagoda@digital-stage.thehill.com and nelis@digital-stage.thehill.com. Follow us on Twitter: @SylvanLane,  @VickofTheHill, @NJagoda and @NivElis