House GOP eyes budget passage that is key to tax debate

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans are focused on cutting taxes instead of deficits as they look to power a $4.1 trillion budget plan through the House on Thursday.

The 2018 House GOP budget promises deep cuts to social programs and Cabinet agency budgets, but its chief purpose is to set the stage for action later this year on a comprehensive Republican overhaul of the U.S. tax code. The tax overhaul is the party’s top political priority as well as a longtime policy dream of key leaders like Speaker Paul Ryan.

The plan calls for more than $5 trillion in spending cuts over the coming decade, including a plan to turn Medicare into a voucher-like program for future retirees, slash Medicaid by about $1 trillion in the next 10 years, and repeal the “Obamacare” health law.

“It’s a budget that will help grow our economy, and it’s a budget that will help rein in our debt,” said Ryan, R-Wis. “It reforms Medicaid. It strengthens Medicare.”

But Republicans are not actually planning to impose any of those cuts with follow-up legislation that would be required under Washington’s Byzantine budget rules. Instead, those GOP proposals for spending cuts are limited to nonbinding promises, and even a token 10-year, $200 billion spending cut package demanded by tea party House Republicans appears likely to be scrapped in upcoming talks with the Senate.

Instead, the motivating force behind the budget measures is the Republicans’ party-defining drive to cut corporate and individual tax rates and rid the tax code of loopholes. They promise this tax “reform” measure will put the economy in overdrive, driving economic growth to the 3 percent range, and adding a surge of new tax revenues that would help bring the budget toward balance.

Passing the measure in the House and Senate would provide key procedural help for the tax measure because it sets the stage for follow-on legislation that can’t be filibustered by Senate Democrats. Republicans used the same so-called reconciliation procedure in their failed attempt to kill “Obamacare,” including its tax surcharges on wealthy people.