August 13, 2001

House Passing Additional Tax Cuts Without Offsets

PDF version
HTML of full report
PDF of full report

If you cannot access the files through the links, right-click on the underlined text, click "Save Link As," download to your directory, and open the document in Adobe Acrobat Reader.

On August 1, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities released a report, House to Consider Additional Tax Cuts Without Offsets. The report explains that despite clear signs that the enacted package of $1.35 trillion of tax cuts is already straining the budget, the House of Representatives continues to press ahead with more tax cuts. Tax breaks in energy legislation that the House passed on August 1, combined with other tax breaks the House passed earlier, raise to $61 billion the amount of revenue losses between 2002 and 2011 that the House has adopted beyond the $1.35 trillion package. In combination with that package, this $61 billion exceeds by $41 billion the total amount set aside for tax cuts in the Congressional budget plan. Yet the House has rejected proposals to offset these additional tax cuts. The findings of the Center's report include:

The Center's report concludes that at the very least, any new tax cuts should be paid for by scaling back provisions of the enacted tax-cut package or providing offsetting revenues in other ways, such as closing unproductive tax breaks. Rejecting this approach, as the House has done, will both exacerbate short-term budget problems and intensify the long-term fiscal difficulties the nation confronts.