Liberal group pans dynamic scoring

Proposed new congressional budget rules would only cloud the impact of broad tax and budget changes, a liberal group said Monday.

{mosads}The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said the GOP’s push to switch to so-called “dynamic” scoring would give lawmakers less information about the effects of budget proposals, and would also allow Republicans to minimize the consequences of their policies.

House Republicans are expected on Monday to approve the new budget rules, which will then likely get ratified by the full chamber on Tuesday. GOP lawmakers say dynamic scoring, which estimates that cutting taxes can spur economic growth, is more accurate than the current projections used by the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation.

Democratic lawmakers have already slammed Republicans for the proposed changes, saying the new rules would pave the way for more policies that aid the wealthy.

CBPP said in its new paper that the new rules would allow Congress to craft a tax reform plan that didn’t fully offset the costs of its tax rate reductions.

The budget group also said that the plan would only give lawmakers a single estimate about the impact of large fiscal packages. JCT, on the other hand, projected that a tax reform bill released by former House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) last year would create anywhere from $50 billion to $700 billion in new revenue.

The new rules, CBPP said, would merely allow lawmakers “to use a single highly uncertain estimate in order to cut tax rates more deeply or curb tax breaks less substantially (or both) than they otherwise could do without facing criticism for adding to deficits and possibly violating key budget rules.”

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the House GOP’s leading voice on budget issues, has said that both dynamic and “static” budget scores are uncertain, and that the new rules would allow Congress’s nonpartisan scorekeepers to give their best estimates.